Columbia  SBnitoer^itp 

intlieCitpofiHruigDrk 

THE  LIBRARIES 


GIVEN  BY 

H.  VJ.  Y/ilson 


WOODROW  WILSON 
AND  THE  WORLD'S  PEACE 


BY  GEORGE  D.  HERRON 
THE  MENACE  OF  PEACE 


BUST  OF   PRESIDENT  WILSON 

MODELED  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  JUNE  I916 

BY  JO   DAVIDSON 


WOODROW  WILSON 

AND 

THE  WORLD'S   PEACE 


BY 

GEORGE  D.  HERRON 


NEW  YORK 

MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 

1917 


COPYRIGHT     19 1 7    BY 
MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 


GIFT   OF 
H.  W.  WILSON 
MAR  2  2   1929 


f 


PRINTED  IN  AMERICA 


.r4 


EXPLANATION   AND   DEDICATION 

EXCEPTING  the  first,  these  chapters 
were  written  for  Continental  European 
readers ;  I  have  indicated,  on  the  title-page  pre- 
ceding each  paper,  the  time  and  the  occasion  of 
its  publication,  and  the  journal  wherein  it  first 
appeared.  I  do  not  now  gather  them  into  this 
little  book  because  I  imagine  them  to  be  an  im- 
portant or  permanent  contribution  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  war,  or  of  the  peace  that  shall  finally 
ensue.  I  bring  them  together  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  have  a  passing  and  inspirational 
value  to  such  as  think  and  feel  profoundly 
about  the  meaning  of  these  days,  and  who  see, 
or  seem  to  see,  that  the  world's  political  and 
social  redemption  is  the  possible,  even  prob- 
able, ultimation  of  the  war. 

Each  paper  has  had  two  or  more  translations 
into   other   languages,   other   countries,   than 


VI  EXPLANATION   AND   DEDICATION 

that  in  which  it  was  originally  published.  The 
opening  paper,  which  gives  the  book  its  name 
and  which  was  first  printed  in  The  New  Age 
of  London,  has  since  been  put  into  German  for 
Die  Freie  Zeitung  of  Bern — the  organ  of  the 
earnest  and  able  German  intellectuals  who  are 
working  for  a  new  and  democratic  Germany, 
and  who  include  among  their  number  such  men 
as  Professor  Foerster,  Dr.  Schlieben,  and  the 
author  of  "J'Accuse."  Monsieur  Paul  Des- 
jardins,  co-operating  with  the  French  Minis- 
ter of  Public  Instruction,  has  honored  the  con- 
eluding  paper,  "Pro- America,"  by  publishing 
it  as  a  preface  to  a  classic  edition  of  President 
Wilson's  message  of  April  2. 

Chronologically,  the  opening  paper  should 
have  come  third  in  the  book.  I  have  placed  it 
first  because  it  seems  to  me  to  afford,  more 
fully  than  the  papers  which  follow  it,  a  per- 
spective of  the  President's  prodigious  purpose. 
The  five  succeeding  papers  are  offered  in  the 
order  in  which  they  appeared. 

To  connect  them  a  little  more  closely,  I  have 


EXPLANATION    AND   DEDICATION  Vll 

somewhat  developed  the  papers  since  their 
publication  in  the  reviews  and  journals  indi- 
cated; but,  in  the  main,  they  stand  substanti- 
ally as  originally  written.  I  have  not  tried  to 
eliminate  the  minor  repetitions  which  are  in- 
evitable when  one  is  presenting  the  same  gen- 
eral subject  under  different  phases  and  to  dif- 
ferent peoples.  Nor  have  I  thought  best  to 
modify  their  form  or  appeal,  even  though  they 
necessarily  must  prove  retrospective,  in  some 
of  their  aspects,  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
events  and  decisions.  I  think  such  American 
readers  as  I  may  have  will  prefer  that  my 
words  retain  their  first  impulse  and  order. 

Monsieur  Louis  Ferriere,  Geneva's  beloved 
and  consecrated  citizen,  and  long  a  pastor  of 
her  National  Church,  has  graciously  consented 
to  accept  the  dedication  of  these  pages.  He 
has  blessed  me  with  his  friendship  since  the 
days  when  I  was  a  student  in  his  city ;  and  it  is 
due  to  my  fellowship  with  him,  and  to  the  spir- 
itual compulsion  I  have  received  from  that 
fellowship,  that  such  halting  powers  as  I  have 


viii  EXPLANATION   AND   DEDICATION 

are  all  mobilized  in  the  service  of  the  Cause 
which  this  book  so  dis jointly  and  inadequately 
advocates. 

George  D.  Hereon. 

he  Retour, 

26  Chemin  des  Cottages, 
Geneva,  Switzerland. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 


I  WooDROw  Wilson  and  the  World's  Peace  3 

II  The  Man  and  the  President  49 

III  His  Initial  Effort  81 

IV  The  Pro-German  Morality  of  the  Pacifist  99 
V  Pro-America  1^^ 

VI  Appendix:     An  Apologia  155 


I 

WOODROW  WILSON 

AND  THE 

WORLD'S  PEACE 

First  published  in  London,  the  New  Age,  June  7,  1917, 

as  an  interpretation  of  President  Wilson's  address 

to  the  American  Senate,  January  27. 


WOODROW  WILSON 

AND  THE 

WORLD'S  PEACE 


ALREADY,  spoken  as  they  were  on  the 
22nd  of  January,  the  words  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson  concerning  the  world's  future 
peace  seem  remotely  in  the  past — so  swift,  so 
unpredictable,  so  immeasurable  and  amazing, 
are  the  strides  of  history  in  these  tremendous 
days.  Yet  it  is  not  too  late — it  is  rather  too 
early — to  consider  the  interrogation,  as  unes- 
capable  as  it  is  momentous,  which  these  words 
up  stand  athwart  the  human  climb.  They 
were  addressed  to  the  American  Senate;  but 
that  body  was  merely  the  necessary  medium  of 
a  message  intended  for  the  ears  of  all  the  earth. 
Not  many  have  barkened  to  the  message  in  its 

3 


4  WOODROW   WILSON 

entirety ;  fewer  still  have  laid  hold  of  its  mean- 
ing. It  remains  yet  to  be  rightly  read,  and  it 
will  be  pertinent  so  long  as  the  ancient  yet 
perennial  predicament  of  the  world  continues. 
So  long  as  our  national  egoisms  prevail;  so 
long  as  diplomacy  flounders  amidst  predacious 
follies  and  futilities ;  so  long  as  political  power 
pursues  its  belief  in  material  might  and  re- 
mains skeptic  and  cynic  towards  the  justice  of 
love  and  its  liberating  correlatives; — just  so 
long  will  the  summons  of  the  American  Presi- 
dent stand  across  the  course  of  the  nations,  de- 
manding an  answer  that  shall  accord  with  the 
mind  of  God  as  it  was  revealed  in  Christ,  and 
weighted  with  judgment  and  doom  if  the  an- 
swer be  not  faithfully  forthcoming. 

Not  that  I  wish  to  overstate  Mr.  Wilson's 
seership  and  statesmanship.  There  were  errors 
of  judgment  in  his  earlier  dealings  with  Ger- 
many. In  the  pursuit  of  his  American  pro- 
gram, he  has  more  than  once  had  to  retrace  his 
way  and  start  anew — and  who  among  the  pio- 
neers has  not  had  to  feel  and  to  plot  his  path 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  5 

through  inevitable  mistakes  and  misgivings? 
But  whatever  his  retracements  or  turnings,  he 
has  proceeded  with  a  spiritual  discernment  and 
audacity  which  have  no  political  parallel.  And 
by  his  address  to  the  Senate — whereby  he  has 
undertaken  to  assemble  the  nations  unto  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount — he  has  challenged 
them  to  a  mutual  adventure  that  would,  if  suc- 
cessful, release  the  pent  soul  of  the  world  at 
last,  and  change  the  competitive  struggle  and 
sorrow  into  co-operate  creation  and  joy. 

There  are  mockers,  of  course,  enough  and 
to  spare.  To  speak  of  the  brotherhood  of  na- 
tions as  the  solvent  of  the  problems  of  the  pres- 
ent war  is  to  invite  the  distrust  if  not  the  de- 
rision of  both  political  and  academic  intellects. 
Our  institutional  ongoings  are  still  grooved  in 
the  notion  that  principles  and  actions  which  are 
individually  desirable  are  collectively  wild  and 
unworkable.  The  centers  of  authority,  when 
you  examine  their  procedure  honestly,  are 
found  pursuing  the  efficiencies  which  all  re- 
ligions alike  attribute  to  diabolic  agency:  in 


6  WOODROAV   WILSON 

the  mortal  efficiency  of  the  Power  we  variously 
call  God,  in  the  literal  applicability  or  prac- 
ticability of  the  Messianic  programs,  authority 
has  neither  a  jot  nor  a  tittle  of  faith.  And  the 
peoples  whom  authority  perverts  and  exploits 
— these  have  had  so  little  experience  in  interna- 
tional truth  or  trust  or  fidelity,  so  little  experi- 
ence in  fraternity  and  freedom  within  the  na- 
tional frontiers,  that  to  them  a  world  that  shall 
be  everywhere  accordant  and  kindly  seems  pos- 
sible only  in  the  dreams  of  the  dreamers. 

It  is  true  that  the  unrealizable  woe  of  the 
hour — that  man's  total  history  indeed — is  the 
repudiation  of  this  dualistic  devilry.  And 
anointed  teachers  have  taught  us,  again  and 
again,  that  life  is  not  divided ;  that  whatever  is 
law  anywhere,  whatever  is  good  or  true  any- 
where, is  righteous  and  truth  and  law  every- 
where. We  also  discern,  in  rare  moments  of 
moral  lucidity,  the  planetary  failure  of  ma- 
terial might  dissevered  from  spiritual  compul- 
sion and  pity;  it  has  always  been  treacherous 
and  incompetent,  leading  the  race  from  abyss 


AND   THE   world's    PEACE  7 

to  abyss — from  the  ruin  of  Egypt  and  Israel 
to  the  ruin  of  Athens  and  Rome ;  from  the  dark 
and  the  terror  of  medieval  Europe  to  the  whole 
unintelligible  horror  of  the  Europe  of  today. 
But  the  lessons  of  history  seem  largely  un- 
learned. The  shepherds  still  huddle  the  sheep 
— their  own  impoverished  souls  also — in  the 
old  barren  j^astures,  the  out-worn  folds. 
Statesmanship  seems  well-nigh  extinct,  and 
the  prophets  lived  long  ago.  Policies  and 
plottings  survive  that  are  little  else,  in  their 
essence,  than  the  devil-worship  of  primitive 
man.  For  it  is  fear  not  faith  that  bounds  our 
national  horizons — or  rather  it  is  fear  of  the 
good  and  faith  in  the  evil.  The  conception 
that  power  belongs  to  material  and  unmoral 
might;  the  notion  that  an  ideal  good  affords 
neither  order  nor  competency — it  is  this  that 
is  basic  in  politics  and  commerce,  shaping  na- 
tional ambitions  and  social  constitutions;  it  is 
this  that  has  been  the  law  of  economic  expan- 
sion and  international  relations.  And  the  Eu- 
rope of  today  is  the  result  of  this  law's  long  and 
depraving  sovereignty. 


II 

BUT  it  is  to  deliver  the  nations  from  this 
diabolic  dualism  that  Woodrow  Wilson 
has  come.  By  his  address  to  the  Senate,  he 
hath  summoned  the  world  to  political  and  in- 
dustrial repentance.  He  calls  not  only  Ger- 
many and  Europe,  but  America  and  Asia  and 
the  ultimate  islands,  to  a  matchless  experiment 
in  the  efficiency  of  the  good.  He  proceeds 
upon  the  expectation  that  he  will  find  in  the 
earth  a  faith  that  shall  be  equal  to  this  experi- 
ment. 

And  according  to  its  faith  will  it  be  with 
the  world,  at  last.  We  shall  nationally  and  in- 
ternationally be  what  we  believe  we  can  be. 
If  we  believe  in  the  best,  we  shall  become  and 
achieve  the  best.  If  we  believe  only  a  frag- 
mentary good  is  attainable,  we  shall  have  but 
the  fragments  our  httle  belief  apprehends.    If 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  9 

we  believe  in  the  sole  efficiency  of  the  worst, 
even  worse  than  the  worst  we  shall  have.  The 
world  as  a  whole,  is  always  the  expression  of 
its  common  belief  or  unbelief  about  itself — 
just  as  each  individual,  in  the  end,  becomes  the 
living  record  of  his  innermost  and  perhaps  un- 
recognized thought  of  life. 

Faith  indeed  has  not  to  do  with  something 
vague  or  invisible  or  unrealizable.  Faith  is 
life's  fundamental  heroism,  the  mode  of  God's 
being,  the  method  whereby  the  universe  be- 
comes, and  is  always  creating  according  to  its 
image.  As  the  faith  of  man  has  invented  the 
steam-engine  and  the  telegraph,  or  has  sounded 
its  high  notes  in  Isaiah  or  Socrates,  in  Jeanne 
d'Arc  or  Mazzini,  so  the  faith  of  God  has  ut- 
tered the  stars  and  dared  the  more  perilous  ex- 
periment of  man.  Faith  is  always  the  reac- 
tion upon  self  of  the  man,  of  society,  of  the 
atom,  of  the  universal  whole.  Thus  what  we 
believe  or  disbelieve  is  stupendously ,  infinitely 
important.  Our  faith  that  the  highest  is  prac- 
ticable is  the  very  force  that  makes  it  prac- 


10  WOODROW    WILSON 

ticahle;  and  our  unbelief  in  the  practicability 
of  the  ideal  is  the  precise  preventative  of  its 
realization. 

Woodrow  Wilson  has  dared  to  believe  di- 
vinely; and  his  faith  that  a  federate  world  is 
possible,  and  the  challenge  of  that  faith  to  the 
nations,  is  the  most  creative  collective  act  since 
the  French  Revolution,  By  his  faith  he  has  set 
a  goal  from  which  mankind  can  never  take  its 
eyes;  he  has  sent  forth  the  word  that  can  never 
return.  If  the  continuation  of  man  upon  the 
earth  is  inevitable,  the  final  fulfillment  of  this 
word  is  inevitable.  By  the  projection  of  one 
man's  faith,  humanity  has  been  made  to  turn  an 
unexpected  corner,  and  there  to  depai^t  irrevoc- 
ably from  the  paths  of  its  past  ongoing.  The 
horizon  of  history  had  highly  shifted,  the  whole 
prospect  of  mankind  had  resplendently 
changed,  and  the  rostrum  of  the  American 
Senate  had  become  as  God's  burning  altar, 
when,  the  address  of  the  President  concluded, 
the  reverent  wonder  of  the  hour  went  abroad, 
encircling  the  world  as  a  divine  visitation. 


Ill 

TDUT  turning  now  to  the  address,  let  us 
-*^  first  consider  its  effect  upon  international 
procedure.  By  his  declaration  of  the  rights  of 
nations — even  more  pivotal  and  immortal  than 
the  doctrine  of  individual  rights  which  motived 
the  French  Revolution — Mr.  Wilson  has  laid 
beneath  the  international  idea  its  first  substan- 
tial and  truthful  foundation.  For  a  true  in- 
ternationalism can  exist  only  as  the  shepherd 
of  virile  and  determined  nationalisms.  Until 
now,  the  internationalism  of  propagandas 
which  have  claimed  such  distinction  has  been 
but  a  doctrinal  fiction,  a  pretentious  and  sterile 
abstraction.  It  has  always  been  an  interna- 
tionalism based  upon  a  fatuous  and  fatal  denial 
of  nationality. 

One  of  the  several  causes  of  the  Socialist 

debacle,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  was  this 

11 


12  WOODROW    WILSON 

inhuman  and  unimaginative  confusion  of  anti- 
nationalism  with  m^^r-nationalism — ^this  mis- 
taking the  former  for  the  latter.  The  Social- 
ist movement  has  never  been  m^^rnational :  it 
has  been  only  a/i^/-national.  The  notion  that 
national  entities  are  unreal,  that  the  nation  is 
an  arbitrary  economic  creation,  is  not  interna- 
tionalism: it  is  the  exact  negation  of  all  that 
gives  internationalism  its  name  or  reason  for 
being. 

For  the  nation  does  exist;  and  it  is  probably 
as  permanent  as  the  world  itself.  None  of  the 
nations  of  old  are  wholly  dead:  the  most  an- 
cient and  forgotten  peoples  have  their  living 
national  remnants  upon  the  earth.  And  it  is 
upon  the  recognition  of  each  particular  ethni- 
cal variety,  it  is  through  calhng  each  group 
unto  the  fulfillment  of  its  being,  that  an  in- 
telligent and  compelling  internationalism  will 
manifest  itself.  It  will  rise,  this  true  inter- 
nationalism, not  from  the  obliteration  of  na- 
tional lines,  but  from  their  vivid  and  fraternal 
definition.     Its  mission  will  be,  first,  to  pro- 


AND   THE  world's   PEACE  13 

cure  for  each  people,  however  small,  an  ade- 
quate opportunity  for  self -discovery  and  self- 
affirmation,  and  then  to  coordinate  all  peoples 
in  one  resolute  and  irradiant  progress,  one  sat- 
isfied universal  family. 

It  is  this  our  President  has  proposed;  and  I 
believe  that  the  future — perhaps  ransomed 
from  our  terrible  present  by  his  initiative — 
will  hold  Woodrow  Wilson  to  have  been  the 
world's  first  international  statesman.  There 
is  already  forming,  as  a  result  of  his  insist- 
ence, and  for  the  first  time  in  history,  a  body 
of  international  public  opinion.  There  is  al- 
ready building,  out  of  the  spiritual  materials 
his  hands  have  furnished,  the  foundations 
whereupon  a  world-citizenry  may  rise  and  in- 
form itself  and  take  its  decisions.  If  the  plan 
he  proposed  before  the  American  Senate  is 
followed,  it  will  result  in  the  end  of  both  war 
and  imperialism,  and  finally  issue  in  a  world- 
repubhc. 


IV 

BUT  the  immediate  and  fundamental  de- 
mand of  the  President  is  this:  that  the 
states  of  Europe  are  asked  to  reorganize  them- 
selves on  the  basis  of  government  by  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed.  No  longer  must  it  be 
that  the  right  of  the  smallest  people  to  its  own 
free  and  unhindered  being,  to  its  own  special 
unfoldment  and  contribution,  shall  be  subor- 
dinated, in  thought  or  in  fact,  to  mere  might 
and  size — to  any  imperial  purpose  or  interest. 
The  brutish  and  commercial  state,  the  mate- 
rialistic fetish  of  dominion,  must  give  place  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  nation  as  an  inviolable 
spiritual  being. 

Other  propositions  are  laid  down,  it  is  true; 
but  they  are  based  upon  the  principle  I  have 
stated;  and  it  is  this  principle  which  I  shall 
particularly  discuss.     I  need  not  refer  to  the 

14 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  15 

"peace  without  victory"  which  the  pacifists 
have  placed  upon  their  banners,  and  which 
pan-German  apostles  have  adopted  as  a  mask 
for  their  Middle-Europe  program.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  exploited  phrase  was  meant  espe- 
cially for  Germany  rather  than  for  the  Allies, 
even  though  it  is  Germany  and  the  pacifists 
who  have  pressed  it  into  theu'  service.  It  may 
well  have  been  intended  as  an  answer  to  Ger- 
many's request  for  a  negotiated  peace;  for 
this  request  was  based  upon  an  impudent  as- 
sumption of  victory — ^which  victory  the  Allies 
were  bidden  to  take  knowledge  of  and  to  make 
terms  with. 

A  similar  misconception  may  have  attended 
the  emphasis  which  was  laid  upon  the  freedom 
of  the  seas.  This  emphasis  has  also  been  mo- 
bilized by  Germany,  and  thus  presented  as  a 
protest  against  British  navalism.  It  is  likely 
that  something  else  was  in  the  President's 
mind.  He  probably  was  thinking  of  the  ac- 
cess of  Russia  and  Roumania,  and  of  the 
smaller  nations  of  Europe,  to  the  open  seas 


16  WOODROW   WILSON 

and  their  highways;  and  this,  not  navalism, 
was  the  import  of  his  emphasis.  If  the  right 
of  each  people  to  its  own  pohtical  and  economic 
development  is  granted,  the  necessity  that  each 
have  a  door  upon  the  seas  must  also  be  ac- 
knowledged and  fulfilled.  But,  as  I  say,  this 
and  all  other  concerns  of  the  address  are  cor- 
relates of  the  fundamental  principle  of  self- 
government. 


LET  us  see  what  this  principle,  so  quietly 
stated,  would  mean  if  accepted  by  the 
belligerents.  Its  first  result  would  be  the  rel- 
egation of  the  present  map  of  the  greater  part 
of  Europe  to  the  waste-basket;  and  with  it 
would  go  most  of  existing  European  govern- 
ments. There  would  be  a  complete  geo- 
graphical redistribution  in  all  the  countries 
East  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Adriatic,  and  each 
would  follow  Russia  in  a  profound  political 
and  social  revolution.  Two  ancient  empires 
would  go  out  of  existence;  several  new  states 
would  come  into  being.  Forgotten  folk-cul- 
tures, beautiful  and  abundant,  would  revive 
and  grow  and  gladden  the  heart  of  the  world. 
Many  varieties  of  industrial  concentration  and 
individualization,  many  new  special  political 
forms  and  social  experiments,  would  be  given 

17 


18  WOODROW   WILSON 

free  place  and  encouragement.  Old  and  sup- 
pressed literatures,  splendid  but  buried 
civilizations,  would  rise  in  a  common  and  re- 
joicing resurrection.  Compared  with  what  it 
now  is,  Europe  would  become  a  different  and 
well-nigh  Edenic  continent. 


VI 

T)  UT  before  generalizing  further,  let  us  be- 
-■^  gin  at  the  Rhine,  there  applying  the  self- 
governing  principle  to  Germany.  First  of 
all,  of  course,  Alsace-Lorraine  must  be  given 
back  to  France — for  such  is  the  ardent  desire 
of  that  subject  and  unhappy  province — and 
much  of  Prussia  must  become  part  of  reunited 
Poland.  But  the  geographical  and  ethnical 
problem  is  only  preliminary.  It  is  after  the 
Alsatians  and  the  Poles  have  been  joined  to 
their  own,  it  is  after  the  Germans  have  been 
confined  within  their  rightful  frontiers,  that 
the  real  problem  of  Germany  begins — that  is, 
if  the  principle  which  Mr.  Wilson  proposed  is 
adopted  as  the  basis  of  peace.  The  German 
Empire  itself  must  go  back  into  the  melting- 
pot,  and  the  German  peoples  be  invited  to  de- 
cide upon  the  forms  and  methods  by  which  they 

19 


20  WOODROW   WILSON 

shall  govern  themselves.  For,  be  it  remem- 
bered, Germany  is  not  a  self-governing  coun- 
try; nor  the  Germans,  in  any  real  sense,  a  po- 
litical people.  They  did  not  have  a  poUtical 
origin;  they  have  had  no  essential  political  ex- 
perience ;  and  their  Empire  is  not  a  political  but 
a  military  state.  The  German  Empire,  im- 
posed upon  the  German  peoples  by  Prussian 
arms,  is  now  maintained  as  an  organization  for 
universal  Germanic  industrial  and  cultural  do- 
minion. The  only  part  the  German  peoples 
have  had  in  the  construction  of  their  Empire  is 
that  of  docile  acceptance.  They  had,  intel- 
lectually and  politically,  nothing  to  do  with  the 
making  of  it,  and  they  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  actual  governing  of  it.  Unlike  France 
and  England,  which  have  a  thousand  years  of 
political  evolution  behind  them,  the  course  of 
German  history  has  been  run  under  pressure 
from  the  top — has  been  guided  by  princes, 
often  grotesque  as  well  as  brutish  and  ty- 
rannical, whom  the  peoples  have  obeyed  with 
little    or   no   resentment    or    self-affirmation. 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  21 

Political  Germany,  non-existent  till  now,  must 
come  into  being  and  receive  its  primary  les- 
sons :  the  German  peoples  must  teach  them-  | 
selves  the  alphabet  of  self-government.  They 
will  have  to  begin,  if  they  are  to  be  a  political 
nation,  with  the  rudiments  which  the  English 
makers  of  the  Magna  Charta  wrested  from 
King  John,  or  with  the  impulse  by  which  the 
Revolution  prevailed  in  France. 

Some  of  the  German  leaders  have  been 
quick  to  discern  this :  they  have  seen  that  a  first 
result  of  Mr.  Wilson's  address,  if  apphed  in 
principle,  would  be  the  dismemberment  of 
Prussia  and  the  fundamental  reconstruction 
of  German  nationality.  They  confess,  too, 
that  a  psychological  revolution  must  also  fol- 
low; for  the  national  mentations  of  the  Ger- 
man are  as  tribal  now,  and  his  collective  mor- 
ality is  as  certainly  barbaric,  as  in  the  days  of 
Tacitus. 


VII 

PASSING  southward  with  the  self-gov- 
erning principle,  we  find  the  Austrian 
and  Turkish  Empires  coming  to  their  overdue 
end.  Bohemia  becomes  a  delivered  and  inde- 
pendent nation.  The  dismembered  Serbs  are 
united  in  one  national  family,  according  to 
their  centuried  yearnings  and  struggles. 
Three  million  Roumanians  are  released  from 
the  malific  Magyar  oppression  and  gathered 
into  the  fold  of  their  own  people.  The  Aus- 
trian Poles,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  Slavs,  are 
joined  unto  their  kindred.  Of  the  Austrian 
Empire,  some  six  or  seven  million  Austrians 
are  left,  with  a  like  number  of  Hungarians,  to 
go  on  together  or  separately,  according  as  they 
mutually  decide. 

Russia  has  already  renounced  her  traditional 
governmental  modes.     Nationality  must  be  re- 

22 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  23 

stored  to  the  Fins;  Russian  Poland  must  be 
surrendered;  the  Letts,  the  Lithuanians,  the 
Ukrainians,  and  all  the  diverse  peoples  under 
former  Russian  rule,  even  unto  far  and  fair 
Bokhara,  must  each  be  bidden  to  the  festal 
board  of  the  Great  Freedom — must  each  be 
released  and  resourced  to  pursue  its  own  in- 
digenous cultural  system.  And  for  her  own 
immediate  people,  for  those  who  are  primarily 
Muscovite  or  Russian,  must  Russia  provide 
the  forms  of  a  just  and  democratic  political 
procedure. 

Nor  must  the  Turk  be  only  expelled  from 
Europe,  and  securely  sequestered  in  some  cor- 
ner of  Asia  Minor :  not  this  is  enough,  nor  the 
partition  of  his  territories  enough.  The  dis- 
persed Armenians  must  be  summoned  to  their 
high  and  ancient  habitation,  and  there  be  en- 
abled to  re-integrate  their  once  vigorous  and 
valorous  nationality.  And  from  Persia  must 
England  as  well  as  Russia  take  predatory 
hands;  for  the  Persia  of  today  is  replete  with 
political  and  spiritual  potencies  that  ask  for 


24  WOODROW   WILSON 

naught  but  opportunity.  Egypt  must  be 
trained  to  self-government  also,  even  if  re- 
maining a  member  of  the  British  Empire. 
Then  the  Arab — he  who  built  resplendent 
Bagdad  and  the  divine  Alhambra,  who  gave 
mathematics  and  medicine  and  philosophy  to 
Europe,  and  whose  marvellous  cities  the  Turk 
and  the  Tartar  and  the  Mongol  destroyed — he, 
too,  must  be  invited  to  make  his  peculiar  and 
bounteous  contribution  to  the  more  beneficient 
world.  Nor  let  us  forget,  even  along  the 
coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  to  call  the  Greeks  to- 
gether under  a  government  of  their  choice,  with 
no  alien  prince  imposed  upon  them  by  the  dy- 
nasts. The  Syrians  also  must  have  the  desire 
of  their  hearts — the  re-establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  French  Crusaders.  And  then 
may  Israel  return  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  lands 
of  the  Jordan  blossom  according  to  the  words 
of  their  ancient  prophets. 

Nor  these  wonders  only:  if  there  should  be 
a  common  and  sincere  acceptance  of  the  pro- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  25 

gram  of  President  Wilson,  other  and  many  re- 
demptions would  ensue,  making  the  world  at 
last  the  harmonious  home  of  an  adequate  race. 


VIII 

IT  might  well  be  that  the  extension  and 
adaptation  of  the  Swiss  governmental  sys- 
tem to  the  ethnic  groups  of  Eastern  Europe 
would  be  the  wisest  solution  of  the  racial  in- 
terests that  now  seem  so  conflicting.  These 
conflicts  of  interests  are  superficial  and  unreal : 
it  is  the  unity  and  mutuality  of  interests  that 
is  real.  Nothing  can  be  disadvantageous  to 
one  people  without  being  harmful  to  all  peo- 
ples: nothing  can  be  truly  good  for  one  with- 
out that  good  accruing  to  all.  It  is  in  the 
unity  and  orchestration  of  interests  that  the 
well-being  of  the  peoples  lies;  for,  at  bottom, 
there  is  only  one  all-embracing  good,  one  in- 
clusive and  pervasive  common  health. 

The  Swiss  Confederation  is  the  convincing 
demonstration  that  divergent  races  and  re- 
ligions may  find  a  common  and  beloved  na- 

26 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  27 

tional  home.  I  am  prone  to  think  of  Switzer- 
land as  the  microcosm  of  the  Europe  of  the 
future — the  microcosm,  perhaps,  of  the  world- 
republic.  Switzerland  is  indeed,  not  to  me 
only,  but  to  wiser  dreamers  than  myself,  the 
fore-type  of  the  federate  humanity.  Of 
course,  democracy  has  yet  farther  to  go: 
Switzerland  has  by  no  means  reached  the 
democratic  goal.  But  she  is  in  the  path  that 
leads  thereto;  and  if  the  eyes  of  the  peace- 
makers be  fixed  upon  the  peace  that  is  per- 
manent and  pure,  in  some  such  path  as  the 
Swiss  Cantons  have  taken  will  they  start  the 
smaller  states  and  national  remnants  of  East- 
ern Europe. 

Three  federal  groups  might  thus  be  formed: 
the  first  consisting  of  Poland  united  with  Lith- 
uania, the  Letts  and  other  suppressed  and 
unhappy  Slavic  peoples.  Then  the  contend- 
ing members  of  the  present  Austrian  Empire, 
ransomed  and  cleansed  from  centuries  of 
Hapsburg  dominion,  might  co-operate  in  a 
greater  Switzerland,  nor  thence  desire  sepa- 


28  WOODROW   WILSON 

rate  political  existence.  The  Balkan  Con- 
federation— betrayed  by  the  eharlatanic  Co- 
burg  Judas — might  again  be  reconstituted. 
And  once  the  process  were  prehended,  once 
the  peoples  were  permitted  to  discover  them- 
selves in  each  other,  it  would  be  a  marvellous 
and  manful  Europe  which  would  thence  fulfill 
the  pattern  received  from  the  Alps. 


IX 

THE  Allies  have  been  fighting  for  noth- 
ing else  than  this — for  nothing  else  than 
a  peace  that  shall,  in  faith  and  in  fact,  com- 
pletely accord  with  the  President's  funda- 
mental proposition.  It  is  no  secret  that  Eng- 
land is  struggling,  even  during  the  war,  to  give 
a  true  and  final  home-rule  to  Ireland :  she  only- 
waits  for  the  Irish  to  agree  among  themselves. 
Nor  is  it  any  secret  that  she  is  planning  for 
India  what  the  Hindoos  have  never  been  able 
to  achieve  for  themselves — a  unified  and  co- 
herent national  being.  Again  and  again,  and 
sincerely  I  believe,  have  France  and  England 
pledged  themselves  to  the  principle  of  self- 
governing  nationalities,  and  thence  to  the  en- 
actment of  one  public  law,  one  increasing  com- 
mon justice,  throughout  the  world. 

Nor  is  the  German  adoption  of  the  demo- 

29 


30  WOODROW   WILSON 

cratic  program  impossible.  It  is  indeed  the 
most  probable  final  result  of  a  German  defeat. 
'No  one  proposes  or  desires  the  German  peo- 
ples should  be  crushed;  it  is  only  desired  that 
they  be  redeemed  from  their  own  Prussian 
methods  and  masters.  I  am  not  among  those 
who  despair,  I  am  rather  among  those  who 
hope,  that  the  victory  of  the  AUies  will  result, 
not  only  in  the  dispersion  of  the  Prussian  night 
from  the  German  mind,  but  in  a  new  and  spir- 
itualized Germany — a  Germany  in  which  all 
the  sheer  might,  the  occult  material  discern- 
ment, which  has  gone  into  Prussian  dominion 
shall  be  transmuted  into  the  forces  of  spiritual 
and  democratic  development.  A  repentant 
Germany,  divinely  restored  and  commissioned 
by  a  great  common  impulse  from  within,  is 
precisely  what  they  who  stand  most  steadily 
against  her  foresee.  It  is  for  the  fulfillment  of 
this  vision  that  they  desire  her  military  over- 
throw. Her  own  nobler  being,  her  own  mis- 
sion to  humanity,  depends  upon  her  retributive 
defeat. 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  31 

Already,  even  while  their  voices  are  yet  un- 
heard amidst  the  tumult,  are  Germany's  truest 
teachers  calling  her  to  come  forth  from  her 
Prussian  and  predacious  today  into  the  prom- 
ise of  a  renunciant  and  ministrant  tomorrow. 
Already,  is  the  heart  of  the  German  people 
appealing  to  the  world  for  patient  opportunity 
and  encouragement  when  the  war  is  done.  It 
may  be  that  then  again  will  revive,  and  in  a 
new  envisioned  modernity,  that  devout  and 
romantic  life,  that  wedded  domesticity  and 
adventure,  so  common  to  the  Germany  of  old. 
We  may  then  look  again  for  apostles  like 
Herder  and  Oberlin,  and  mayhap  the  greater 
Beethoven  will  be  born,  and  the  efficiency  of 
the  German  become  so  chivalric,  so  consecrate 
and  contributory,  that  the  nations,  each  bring- 
ing its  own  especial  gift,  will  rejoice  in  the 
service  which  that  efficiency  offers. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  program  is 
also  the  repudiation  of  the  performance  of 
hate.  He  is  not  deterred  by  the  fact  that  the 
literature  of  hatred  holds  the  day.  Do  you 
doubt  that  it  does?  Upon  my  table  are  recent 
numbers  of  representative  reviews  of  different 
countries.  I  go  through  them  at  random,  to 
behold  writer  after  writer,  teacher  after 
teacher,  bowing  down  in  the  House  of  Hate. 
Let  me  take  a  typical  instance.  I  find  Pro- 
fessor Kuno  Francke,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  February,  reporting  the  social  and  re- 
ligious virtues  of  the  changed  Germany  he 
foresees.  He  informs  us  that  this  spiritual- 
ized Germany  is  the  ardent  and  absorbing  con- 
cern of  the  Emperor,  whom  he  considers  as 
"the  man  who  in  this  war  has  been  to  all  his 
subjects  a  shining  example  of  real  greatness 

32 


AND  THE   world's   PEACE  33 

of  character."  Even  so,  he  declares  that  the 
war,  regardless  of  its  outcome,  ''will  leave  for 
many  years  to  come  such  a  vast  accumulation 
of  hatred,  jealousy  and  mutual  fear  among  all 
European  nations  that  any  grouping  of  pow- 
ers for  the  maintenance  of  peace  will  have  to 
depend  upon  the  full  military  strength  of  each 
of  its  members." 

Thus  speaks  the  trained  observer,  thus 
speak  the  outward  facts.  And  if  we  try  to 
count  the  dead,  if  we  consider  what  unremit- 
ting blunders  and  how  little  brains  go  into  the 
present  government  of  the  world,  we  must  con- 
cede that  the  conclusion  is  logically  correct. 
But  now,  as  always,  is  mere  logic  a  liar;  now, 
as  always,  the  trained  observer  fails  to  observe 
— fails  to  penetrate  the  facts  before  his  eyes. 
This  is  the  case  with  even  a  teacher  so  com- 
pletely equipped,  so  sympathetic  and  sincere, 
as  Professor  Francke.  This  noble  and  gifted 
German  knows  not  the  heart  of  his  Germany ; 
nor  apprehends  he  the  purpose  that  is  forming 
in  the  midst  of  Europe — yea,  and  that  shall 


34  WOODROW   WILSON 

soon  become  enaetive  and  creative  in  the  reso- 
lute soul  of  the  world.  Despite  the  world's 
red  testimony  to  the  contrary,  the  days  of  the 
institutions  and  the  mobilizations  of  hatred  are 
numbered ;  and  numbered  also  are  the  laws  and 
customs  that  belong  to  economic  and  social  re- 
venge. 

Hate  does  not  reside  in  the  heart  of  the  'peo- 
ples: it  is  not  there  except  as  it  is  kindled  by 
the  political  and  journalistic  mercenaries  of  the 
owners  and  the  rulers.  The  hate  which  now 
seems  to  he  filling  and  consuming  the  peoples 
is  not  real;  it  is  artificial  and  shallow  and  tran- 
sient. They  are  blind  who  think  this  war  will 
leave  generations  and  organizations  of  hatred 
behind  it.  It  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind. 
The  result  will  rather  be  this — that  the  war 
will  burn  up  the  hatreds  of  both  the  present  and 
the  past.  There  will  be  a  purification  of  the 
world  from  hatred  before  long.  The  foolish- 
ness of  hate  is  already  apparent  to  the  soldiers 
in  the  trenches,  and  to  their  fathers  and  moth- 
ers and  wives  at  home.    I  have  seen  it — and  I 


AND    THE    world's    PEACE  35 

dare  to  declare  it — that  there  was  never  so  lit- 
tle of  hate  in  the  world  as  now.  Hate  was 
never  so  near  to  extinction  as  it  is  at  this  most 
embattled  moment  of  man's  planetary  career. 
And  it  is  because  of  its  repudiation  of  hate  that 
President  Wilson's  immortal  appeal  becomes 
perceptive  and  prophetic  beyond  anything 
coming  from  the  lips  of  a  leader  for  many  gen- 
erations. 


XI 

IT  is  easy  to  babble  of  Utopia  in  reply.  It 
is  the  custom  of  cowards  and  cynics,  of  spir- 
itual indolence  and  social  selfishness,  to  deride 
as  Utopian  whatever  requires  high  risk  and 
bold  sacrifice.  But  what  else  than  the  effort  for 
our  life's  perfectability  has  yet  proved  prac- 
ticable? Do  we  call  the  present  way  of  carry- 
ing on  our  planet  a  success?  Could  the  mind 
of  an  insane  god  conceive  a  madder  world  than 
the  one  the  practical  man  is  now  furnishing  us? 
Is  this  universal  tragic  fiasco  the  kind  of  com- 
pliment the  world's  wise  and  prudent  desire? 
It  is  time  to  ask  and  to  answer — time  to  take 
knowledge  of  the  unfailing  imbecility,  of  the 
ebbless  confusion  and  woe,  the  unreckonable 
wreckage  and  waste,  that  forever  course  what 
we  purblindly  regard  as  the  practical  adminis- 
tration of  our  mortal  affairs.     Thus  we  shall 

36 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  37 

one  day  conclude,  I  perceive,  that  only  Utopia 
is  practicable.  We  shall  see  that  no  peace  is 
procurable,  either  by  a  world  or  by  nations  or 
by  individuals,  save  in  the  realization  of  the 
ideal:  we  shall  never  get  on  with  less  than  the 
best.  It  is  Utopia  or  perdition  that  awaits  the 
human  race  in  the  end:  it  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  or  yet  deeper  hells  than  the  one  through 
which  the  world  is  now  wading. 


XII 

WHO  knows  if,  after  all,  the  war  be  not 
a  preparation  of  the  peoples  for  a  gen- 
eral society  which  shall  at  last  comprehend  and 
harmonize  all  the  facts  and  forces  of  the 
world's  indivisible  life?  It  may  be  that  the 
cannons  are  God's  voices,  that  the  armies  are 
harrowing  the  fields  for  God's  planting.  In- 
deed, there  has  been  an  abundant  divine  sowing 
since  the  challenge  to  civilization  resounded 
from  the  imperial  palace  at  Berlin.  And  the 
first  harvest  is  already  ripe  for  such  as  are  wise 
for  the  reaping.  Even  whilst  the  armies 
march  on,  the  soldiers  are  asking  questions  that 
have  never  been  asked  before  in  this  world;  and 
the  same  questions  are  on  the  lips  of  the 
women  and  the  fathers  at  home,  and  even  awed 
children  are  whispering  them.  And  all  these 
are  charged  with  a  wiser  wonderment  than  has 

38 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  39 

hitherto  drawn  the  human  family  together. 
They  perceive — ^the  majority  of  men  and 
women  today  perceive — ^that  war  must  be  made 
anachronistic  and  senseless  and  cowardly. 
There  is  forming  a  great  resolution,  linking  up 
the  nations  and  the  legions  into  an  invisible 
freemasonry,  that  this  shall  be  the  last  such 
catastrophe  which  man  inflicts  upon  himself. 
A  world-citizenry  is  suddenly  springing  into 
being;  and  it  may  not  be  long  till  it  takes  pos- 
session of  its  own,  gathering  not  only  all  peo- 
ples into  its  concord,  including  every  sentient 
being  and  excluding  none,  but  also  our  whole 
planetary  life,  the  whole  procession  of  nature. 
There  are  many  signs  that  the  peoples  may 
soon  open  their  eyes,  beholding  each  other  as 
members  of  one  eternal  family,  never  divided 
in  reality  but  only  in  appearance,  nor  made 
enemies  by  else  than  the  perennial  exploitage 
of  parasitic  systems  and  sovereignties. 


XIII 

THE  continuance  of  man  upon  the  earth 
has  the  nature  of  a  perpetual  miracle. 
Our  usual  collective  ways  are  downward,  de- 
scending anon  into  hadean  delirium  and  de- 
struction; and  whenever  the  race  or  the  na- 
tion is  lifted  and  started  anew,  it  is  by  spiritual 
precipitation.  Great  religious  reformations, 
reconstructive  national  revolutions,  like  historic 
individual  conversions,  have  come  as  comes  the 
thief  in  the  night :  even  if  envisioned  eyes  have 
foreseen  them,  even  if  prophetic  voices  have 
foretold  them,  at  an  unexpected  hour  they  ap- 
pear. A  tremendous  and  transcending  crisis, 
sudden  as  the  dawn  in  the  East,  swift  as  the 
lightning  in  the  West,  seizes  strong  Saul  of 
Tarsus  and  nevermore  lets  him  go;  or  seizes 
the  France  of  the  Revolution,  thereby  anew 
creating  the  world. 

40 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  41 

May  it  not  be  that  the  supreme  miracle,  the 
most  encompassing  and  conclusive  of  conver- 
sions, is  about  to  happen  now?  May  it  not  be 
that  the  world,  threatening  and  breathing  out 
slaughter,  is  unknowingly  on  its  way  to  Da- 
mascus, soon  to  be  seized  by  an  enlightenment 
that  shall  pitch  the  race  upon  an  entirely  new 
plane  of  experience?  I  believe  this  to  be  the 
most  probable  ultimation  of  the  war.  It  is 
probable  that  this  deepening  human  night, 
sphering  the  earth  in  sorrow  and  terror  and 
tragedy  unthinkable,  will  end  in  the  break  of 
an  amazing  and  ineffable  day ;  in  the  wonder  of 
men  finding  each  other  out  for  the  first  time, 
and  from  London  to  Ultima  Thule,  from  the 
earth's  rims  and  edges  to  the  soul's  receding 
frontiers.  It  is  probable  that,  despairing  of 
help  in  teachers  and  governors,  discovering 
that  society  has  built  upon  the  worst,  the  na- 
tions will  together  resolve  to  make  trial  of  the 
best,  and  so  take  up  their  procession  toward 
the  communal  world.  It  is  probable  that  we 
shall  thus  at  last  believe  the  report  of  Him  we 


42  WOODROW   WILSON 

have  so  long  rejected,  having  finally  seen 
through  the  folly  and  falsity  of  every  other  re- 
port of  life.  It  is  probable  that  the  Christ 
will  so  come  again,  not  merely  or  at  all  as  a 
single  unique  individual,  but  in  the  radiant  and 
robust  self -leadership  of  the  peoples — this  un- 
folding of  the  manful  mind  of  God,  of  the  om- 
nipotent will  to  love,  in  a  mutual-membered 
humanity. 


XIV 

EARTH'S  present  condition,  I  know, 
would  seem  to  discredit  such  promise,  to 
disprove  such  probabihty.  I  am  not  ignorant 
of  the  human  fact :  I  have  seen  what  is  happen- 
ing: what  seemed  social  order  is  disintegrating 
forever:  on  the  crumbling  walls  I  have 
watched,  amid  the  moral  and  material  ruin  I 
have  worked,  and  the  sorrow  I  have  searched. 
Standing  now  at  one  of  the  teeming  crossways 
of  Europe,  I  look  out  upon  a  world  ablaze  and 
bemazed,  even  well-nigh  demented,  by  a  war 
that  is  slipping  from  mortal  control;  a  world 
submerged  and  benumbed,  a  world  almost  be- 
sotted, by  a  woe  beyond  mortal  sounding  or 
surcease.  It  is  a  world,  too,  compelled  to  this 
table  of  anguish,  this  orgy  of  death,  by  the  oc- 
cult power,  by  the  malign  and  mysterious  me- 
taphysics, of  a  monstrous  finance,  encoiling 

43 


44  WOODROW   WILSON 

and  conscripting  the  nations,  and  outmeasur- 
ing  existing  political  imagination  or  mastery: 
and  this  finance,  appropriating  the  pan-Ger- 
man imperial  purpose,  is  also  allied  with  a 
power  that  is  blacker  and  still  more  occult — 
a  power  concerned  with  the  conscription  and 
exploitage  of  the  soul.  All  this  I  see,  and 
more.  But  even  so,  despite  the  triune  Satan 
to  whom  we  thus  seem  awhile  delivered,  de- 
spite the  despairs  and  delusions  of  these  blood- 
drunken  days,  I  also  see  that  the  world  is  in- 
stinct with  an  unwonted  expectancy,  with  a 
sense  of  some  near  Messianic  intervention  and 
pervasion,  and  that  a  change  of  upward  and 
universal  scope  is  preparing.  At  any  hour, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  change  may 
come,  and  an  indwelling  Divine  Social  Pres- 
ence enfold  and  unite  the  aware  and  glad  peo- 
ples. 

It  is  thus  that  the  peoples,  while  the  accosted 
rulers  stand  astonished  or  derisive,  have  given 
ear  to  the  wistful  but  commanding  summons 
of  President  Woodrow  Wilson.     His  speech 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  45 

seemeth  strange  indeed,  for  one  having  au- 
thority so  great,  and  his  voice  hath  the  sound  of 
one  coming  from  afar.  He  has  startled  the 
nations  with  news — with  a  news  whose  signifi- 
cance is  yet  unguessed  by  the  herald  or  his 
harkeners.  Unknown  to  them,  unknown  to 
himself,  he  has  announced  that  Return  which 
is  to  be  at  once  the  conclusion  and  the  true  be- 
ginning of  history.  His  words  are  the  sign 
that  there  are  sons  of  men  who  are  about  to  be- 
come manifest  sons  of  God,  perceptive  and 
virile  with  His  love,  unfearing  and  audacious 
in  His  freedom,  His  alert  and  inventive  fel- 
low-workers in  an  eternity  of  creative  adven- 
ture. And  these  words  the  world  will  remem- 
ber, this  news  the  ages  will  confirm,  when  the 
war  shall  have  paled  into  a  dusty  incident  of 
humanity's  home-coming. 


II 

THE  MAN 
AND  THE  PRESIDENT 

First  published^  under  the  title  of  ^'President  Woodrow 
Wilson/*  in  La  Semaine  Litteraire,  Geneva,  Decem- 
ber ig,  igidj  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Wilson  s 
re-election  to  the  presidency. 


THE  MAN 
AND  THE  PRESIDENT 


MORE  than  any  other  man  now  living, 
Woodrow  Wilson  is  likely  to  receive 
and  to  hold  the  world's  attention.  Deeply, 
and  with  broad  and  shrewdest  kindness,  he 
broods  the  human  problem.  He  sees  far  into 
the  future,  and  he  has  clear  ideas  as  to  some 
of  the  things  to  be  done.  He  knows,  too,  how 
to  dispense  with  banners,  and  how  to  accord 
his  most  revolutionary  measures  to  the  "still 
small  voice."  His  largest  intentions  are  hid 
within  himself;  he  tells  as  little  as  possible  be- 
forehand ;  he  prefers  to  let  his  mind  be  revealed 
by  results  rather  than  promises.  He  knows 
that,  in  some  crises,  men  are  too  slow  and 
doubtful,  too  double-minded,  to  respond  to 

49 


50  WOODROW   WILSON 

the  great  appeal.  They  must  be  started  in 
the  new  direction  with  a  kind  of  divine  stealth, 
and  without  being  told  whither  they  go.  It  is 
only  after  they  enter  the  better  condition,  the 
larger  freedom  and  the  fairer  faith,  that  they 
discover  they  have  been  led  more  wisely  than 
they  knew,  and  are  able  to  perceive  the  nobler 
prospect. 

Such  is  the  quality  of  Wilson's  leadership. 
It  is  this  spiritual  adroitness,  this  union  of  ex- 
traordinary political  idealism  with  an  equal  de- 
gree of  political  cunning,  that  is  his  chief  char- 
acteristic ;  and  it  is  this  that  persuades  the  peo- 
ple to  trust  him,  even  if  it  be  somewhat  blindly. 
It  is  thus,  too,  that  his  stature  is  constantly  en- 
larging, even  unto  the  proportions  of  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln. 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  re-elected  to  the 
presidency  despite  the  opposition  of  the  most 
powerful  interests  ever  allied  against  an 
American  presidential  candidate.  He  defied 
the  world's  boldest  financial  organizations,  now 
centered  in  New  York,  and  equipped  for  com- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  51 

mand  or  for  massacre.  The  whole  German 
race,  from  Potsdam  to  San  Francisco,  worked 
tirelessly  and  malignly  for  his  defeat.  With 
equal  industry  and  intrigue,  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic hierarchy  also  labored  to  prevent  his  re- 
election. And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  ven- 
omed  and  united  efforts  of  his  opponents,  he 
was  the  choice  of  the  American  people.  Now 
that  he  is  elected,  even  many  who  decried  him 
are  relieved  by  the  sense  of  some  new  safety 
which  his  presence  offers  to  civilization — ^to  a 
civilization,  indeed,  that  seems  about  to  de- 
stroy itself. 

I  know  his  European  critics  assert  that  Mr. 
Wilson  stands  for  the  material  interests  of 
America.  But  he  could  not  be  more  com- 
pletely misread:  the  great  material  interests, 
the  materialist  philosophers  also,  are  straight 
against  him,  are  his  bitterest  foes.  So  far 
from  being  a  materialist,  his  advocacy  of  a 
world-democracy  is  in  order  that  there  may  be 
a  sphere  for  the  true  spiritual  unfoldment  of 
both  the  collectivity  and  the  individual.     It 


52  WOODROW   WILSON 

is  for  this  he  has  set  before  the  single  soul,  and 
before  each  citizenry,  the  goal  of  a  just  and 
joyous  society  of  nations. 


II 

AMONG  European  peoples,  especially  on 
the  Continent,  there  is  a  curious  and  in- 
credible ignorance  regarding  the  relation  of 
Mr.  Wilson  to  Germanism.  I  have  just  read 
the  astounding  information,  given  by  a  sup- 
posedly authoritative  writer  on  American  af- 
fairs, that  the  pro-Germans  of  America  voted 
for  the  President's  re-election.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  make  a  statement  more  contrary 
to  the  truth.  Mr.  Hughes,  the  opponent  of 
Mr.  Wilson,  undoubtedly  owed  his  nomination 
to  German  influence.  In  America,  the  fact  is 
scarcely  disputed.  The  German-American 
Alliance,  claiming  the  political  control  of  three 
million  citizens,  officially  instructed  them  to 
vote  for  Hughes.  The  German  Catholics  of 
America,  by  their  congress  in  New  York  City, 
likewise  demanded  Wilson's  condemnation  and 

53 


54  WOODROW   WILSON 

rejection.  The  German  newspapers  of  the 
United  States,  with  hardly  an  exception,  vin- 
dictively strove  for  the  same  result. 

Then,  on  October  9th,  before  a  vast  au- 
dience in  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Hughes  publicly 
committed  himself  to  a  course  of  action  that 
could  have  come  to  nothing  else  than  obedience 
to  the  behest  of  Germany  that  America  should 
break,  or  try  to  break,  the  British  blockade. 
If  Mr.  Hughes  had  been  elected,  and  if  his 
words  meant  anything  at  all,  his  administration 
inevitably  would  have  brought  him  into  conflict 
with  the  Allies,  thus  ranging  America  on  the 
side  of  Germany.  As  the  Herold  (German) 
of  New  York  said:  *'Of  all  the  declarations 
which  the  Repubhcan  candidate  has  thus  far 
made,  that  of  Monday  in  Philadelphia  is  by  far 
the  most  important.  .  .  .  He  did  not  actually 
mention  England  by  name,  but  his  words  left 
no  room  for  doubt  about  his  meaning.  .  .  . 
Every  citizen  of  German  origin  should  cast  his 
vote  for  Hughes." 

Mr.  Norman  Hapgood,  in  the  Independent 


AND   THE  world's   PEACE  55 

(New  York)  of  November  6th,  and  Mr.  Frank 
Percy  Olds,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  of  Sep- 
tember, have  well  and  carefully  summarized 
the  German  attitude  toward  Mr.  Wilson.  To 
such  as  would  like  to  look  further  into  the  sub- 
ject, I  would  suggest  a  perusal  of  these  sum- 
maries. I  can  only  quote  briefly,  but  the  ex- 
amples I  give  are  representative  and  typical. 
Said  the  Staatz-Zeitung,  the  organ  of  the  most 
powerful  German-American  financial  inter- 
ests :  "German- Americans,  who,  as  citizens  of 
the  United  States,  were  received  by  Mr. 
Hughes,  to  whom  he  as  an  American  declared 
that  the  interests  of  America  stand  before  all 
others,  are  thereby  firmly  convinced  that 
Charles  E.  Hughes  is  worthy  of  the  confidence 
of  all  American  citizens  and  that  his  election  to 
the  presidency  of  the  United  States  will  be  a 
blessing."  The  Chicago  A  bendpost,  which  bit- 
terly opposed  the  re-election  of  Wilson  and 
favored  the  election  of  Hughes,  made  the  fol- 
lowing pronouncement:  "For  many  years 
back,  the  German- Americans  have  been  flatter- 


56  WOODROW   WILSON 

ing  themselves  with  the  hope  that  the  founding 
of  the  National  German- American  Alliance 
might  become  the  point  of  departure  for  a 
healthy  political  activity.  That  was  at  least 
one  reason  for  founding  the  National  Alliance 
for  a  great  number  of  Germans  who  took  a 
greater  interest  than  usual  in  the  public  affairs 
of  the  country.  It  is  better  to  say  right  out, 
Yes,  we  favor  a  policy  which  will  be  advan- 
tageous to  Germany."  Consonant  with  this, 
the  press-bureau  of  the  German- American  Al- 
liance issued  the  following  declaration:  "In 
unity  is  power,  and  the  power  of  American  citi- 
zens of  German  descent  and  their  political  sig- 
nificance is  centered  in  the  preservation  of  their 
unity,  which  is  the  goal  of  the  German- Ameri- 
can Alliance.  Every  attempt  to  break  it  up 
and  to  destroy  it  amounts  to  treason  to  the  cul- 
tural mission  of  the  German  race  in  the  United 
States  of  America."  The  St.  Paul  Volkszei- 
tung  declared  that  President  Wilson's  foreign 
policy  had  resulted  in  uniting  all  German- 
Americans  at  last,  and  in  uniting  them  against 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  57 

his  administration.  The  Deutscher  Corre* 
pondent,  of  Baltimore,  considered  that,  in  op- 
posing President  Wilson,  Germans  were  pre- 
venting the  Anglicizing  of  the  American  peo- 
ple. The  Milwaukee  Germania  Herold  urged 
that  Lutherans  and  Catholics,  and  "all  citi- 
zens in  whose  veins  German  blood  flowed," 
should  unite  in  opposition  to  Wilson  and  in 
favor  of  Hughes.  The  German  leaders  in 
America  expressed  their  hatred  of  Wilson  as 
one  who  had  never  known  "Kultur";  as  one 
who  had  always  been  an  Anglo-maniac  and  an 
agitator  for  the  return  of  the  United  States  to 
the  English  colonial  system.  Any  good  Re- 
publican could  win  against  Wilson,  thought 
the  Cleveland  Waechter  und  Anzeiger,  and  the 
Germania  Herold  proclaimed  that  the  Ger- 
man-American displeasure  with  Wilson  was 
shown  by  the  remarkable  circumstance  that  not 
one  German  paper  of  America,  even  of  his  own 
Democratic  party,  supported  him.  The  EoO' 
celsiory  organ  of  the  German  Catholics,  con- 
demned the  supporters  of  Wilson  as  pseudo- 


58  WOODROW   WILSON 

patriots — "patriots  for  revenue  only" — ^their 
patriotism  being  imported  from  London.  An- 
other influential  German  paper,  in  an  Inde- 
pendence Day  editorial,  asserted  that  America 
had  again  become,  under  President  Wilson's 
administration,  a  British  vassal  state.  Said 
the  St,  Louis  Westliche  Post:  "Because  of  his 
one-sidedness,  nothing  which  Democratic 
leaders  can  say  or  do  will  make  German- Amer- 
icans friends  of  Mr.  Wilson  again."  "The 
great  mass  of  the  German-Americans,"  said 
Amerika,  another  German  Catholic  organ, 
**are  through  with  him  and  only  circumstances 
now  quite  unforeseen  could  bring  about  a 
reconciliation.  They  cannot  be  talked  down." 
And  again  the  Excelsior,  speaking  of  the 
American  pro-Allies,  had  this  to  say:  "They 
are  only  Anglo-Saxons  working  on  Cecil 
Rhodes's  testament,  to  the  end  that  the  proud, 
independent  United  States  may  again  be 
brought  under  the  yoke  of  Old  England. 
And  at  their  head — intentionally  or  not — 
stands  Woodrow  Wilson^  who  still  calls  him- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  59 

self  President  of  the  United  States,  but  who 
really  is  nothing  more  than  a  British  colonial 
director,"  Still  more  hateful  were  the  words 
of  another  German- American  organ,  which  de- 
nounced President  Wilson  as  a  lackey  in  Brit- 
ain's livery,  "kissing  the  hand  of  his  Britannic 
majesty"  while  the  latter,  "kicks  him  hke  a 
dog."  The  Waechter  und  Anzeiger  pro- 
claimed that  "to  speak  of  a  crime  on  the  part 
of  Germany  in  the  Lusitania  case  is  the  most 
foolish  cant  conceivable.  Our  munition  ex- 
ports, America's  wallowing  in  blood-money, 
America's  self-deception — these  are  crimes 
also  on  the  conscience  of  our  own  people." 
The  criticism  concludes  with  the  statement  that 
President  Wilson  ought  to  have  been  Czar. 

Nor  only  in  America,  but  in  Germany  as 
well,  was  the  defeat  of  Wilson  and  the  elec- 
tion of  Hughes  urged  upon  German- Ameri- 
can citizens.  By  all  the  German  official  press 
was  America  declared  to  be,  under  the  admini- 
stration of  President  Wilson,  an  ally  of  France 
and  England.     A  cartoon  in  Jugend  repre- 


60  WOODROW   WILSON 

sents  England  as  piously  distributing  thou- 
sand-pound notes  wherewith  to  convince  Amer- 
ican voters  of  the  need  of  Wilson's  election. 

Mr.  Hughes  was  the  avowed  candidate  of 
Berlin  for  nomination  at  the  Republican  Con- 
vention in  Chicago,  and  for  election  to  the 
presidency  after  the  nomination  had  been 
made.  Notwithstanding  his  fervent  Ameri- 
canism, his  administrative  policy,  had  he  been 
elected,  would  have  been  qualified,  inevitably 
if  unconsciously,  by  the  fact  he  was  the  choice 
of  Germany;  and  to  say,  as  has  been  said  by 
European  journals,  that  Mr.  Wilson  received 
the  pro-German  vote  is  much  the  same  as  if 
some  historian  should  announce  that  Martin 
Luther  received  his  chief  support  from  the 
Pope  of  Rome. 


Ill 

MY  interpretation  of  President  Wilson 
may  seem  to  be  contradicted  by  his  de- 
lay in  joining  final  issue  with  Germany, 
I  think,  however,  if  all  the  facts  and  forces 
with  which  he  has  had  to  work  were  considered, 
the  contradiction  would  prove  unreal.  I  could 
wish,  it  is  true,  that  he  had  protested  against 
the  violation  of  Belgium.  I  could  also  wish 
that  he  had  broken  with  Germany  at  the  time 
of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  I  would  re- 
joice if  America  were  now  battling  for  the 
democratic  principle,  for  the  spiritual  exist- 
ence of  the  race,  in  fellowship  with  England 
and  Italy  and  France.  I  conceive  our  en- 
forced neutrality  to  be  both  a  spiritual  and  a 
political  failure  of  our  national  being.  If  it 
continues  throughout  the  war,  the  moral  and 

61 


62  WOODROW   WILSON 

intellectual  disaster  to  America  will  be  greater 
than  the  like  disaster  to  Europe. 

But  this  neutrality  is  not  to  be  charged  to 
President  Wilson.  There  has  been  no  time 
when  either  his  cabinet,  the  House  of  Con- 
gress, or  the  people,  would  have  supported  him 
in  a  declaration  of  war  against  Germany.  We 
know,  now,  how  unsupported  he  was  by  his 
ministers  in  the  affair  of  the  Lusitania;  how 
reluctantly  the  House  of  Congress  consented 
to  his  Sussex  message.  We  must  remember, 
too,  how  many  of  its  members  are  of  German 
birth  or  descent.  We  must  also  consider  that 
war  with  Germany  meant,  in  all  probability, 
civil  war  with  America — possibly  a  state  of  un- 
exampled national  anarchy,  savagely  inspired 
by  the  omnipresent  apostles  of  Germanism. 

Mr.  Wilson  is  not  the  government ;  he  is  not 
the  people;  and  he  could  only  do  the  best 
the  national  circumstances  would  allow.  We 
must  not  think  that  the  protest  of  elect  souls  of 
New  York  and  New  England  represents  the 
national  mind.     These  do  not  articulate  the 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  63 

feeling  or  will,  numerically  speaking,  of  even  a 
large  minority.  The  great  body  of  the  na- 
tion— especially  of  Middle  America — is  solidly 
opposed  to  participation  in  the  war.  It  was 
left  to  Mr.  Wilson  to  interpret,  as  radically 
and  effectually  as  he  could,  the  people  who  had 
chosen  him  to  be  their  spokesman  and  the 
executive  of  their  will. 


IV 

1  SUSPECT  that,  if  the  truth  were  dis- 
cerned or  revealed,  we  should  find  Mr. 
Wilson  has  taken,  after  all,  the  course  most 
contributoiy  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies — and 
this  he  has  had  to  do  quietly  and  covertly.  The 
world-war  has  staged  for  him  many  theatric 
opportunities,  but  he  has  avoided  the  dramatic 
in  order  to  accomplish  the  essential.  Between 
his  well-nigh  exasperating  patience  and  instant 
war  there  was  no  middle-ground.  To  have 
protested  against  the  violation  of  Belgium 
would  have  meant  war,  and  that  shortly.  The 
same  was  true  in  the  case  of  the  Lusitania. 
And  war  between  America  and  Germany 
meant  cutting  off  the  supplies  upon  which  the 
success  of  the  Allies  depends.  Submarines 
would  have  blocked  the  American  coasts;  the 
shipments  of  munitions  to  Europe  would  have 

64 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  65 

ceased;  America's  resources  would  have  been 
absorbed  in  her  own  military  and  naval  prepa- 
rations. Thus  Mr.  Wilson  could  not  have 
kept  open  the  door — as  he  certainly  has — for 
England  and  France  to  obtain  munitions  and 
money  from  America.  And  the  European 
war  would  probably  have  ended  before  Amer- 
ica could  render  effectual  military  aid. 

Finally,  President  Wilson's  refusal  to  break 
the  British  blockade  is  one  of  the  great  strate- 
gic facts  of  the  war — perhaps  the  most  decisive 
fact,  when  all  is  said,  in  holding  open  the  gates 
of  advantage  for  the  Allies.  Without  his 
action  in  this  regard,  the  Allies  could  not  win 
the  war;  and  in  her  understanding  of  this,  Ger- 
many is  correct.  Indeed,  at  this  moment, 
it  is  Germany  that  would  be  altogether 
the  gainer,  so  far  as  the  European  conflict  is 
concerned,  by  war  with  America.  At  the 
same  time,  and  in  everything  that  practically 
counts,  the  Allies  would  be  the  losers.  Ger- 
many knows  this  so  well  that  she  persists  in 
trying  to  force  the  hand  of  President  Wilson ; 


66  WOODROW    WILSON 

and  President  Wilson  knows  it  so  well  that  he 
persists  in  his  nominal  neutrality — and  per- 
sists in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  can  make  no 
explanation,  nor  speak  the  words  that  would 
expose  the  hypocrisies  and  brutalities  of  his 
most  relentless  and  unscrupulous  opponents. 

Mr.  Wilson  has  also,  in  each  crisis  that  Ger- 
many has  precipitated,  looked  beyond  the  pres- 
ent war's  immediate  issues.  Longingly  and 
hopefully,  he  peers  into  a  future  wherein  ques- 
tions between  nations  are  settled  without  war. 
If  America  should  now  take  up  arms,  with  the 
whole  world  thus  involved,  soon  every  sem- 
blance of  international  law  would  end.  Mr. 
Wilson  has  felt  it  to  be  the  mission  of  America, 
at  this  time  of  diplomatic  anarchy,  to  stand  for 
a  general  public  law  and  justice  based  upon 
agreement.  He  has  tried  to  make  every  crisis 
an  opportunity  for  the  enunciation  and  devel- 
opment of  a  new  international  righteousness. 
Wisely  or  unwisely,  he  used  the  case  of  the 
Lusitania  to  try  to  wrest  from  Germany  some 
confession  of  public  sin,   some  acknowledg- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  67 

ment  of  international  principle.  We  should 
also  remember,  in  our  discussion  of  Mr.  Wil- 
son's administrative  conduct,  that  his  message 
to  Congress,  at  the  time  of  the  sinking  of  the 
Sussex,  was  the  completest  arraignment  of 
Germany  that  has  yet  been  made  by  diplom- 
acy. The  condemnations  of  English  writers 
and  diplomats  weigh  lightly  in  comparison 
with  the  words  of  judgment  passed  upon  Ger- 
many by  that  message.  Never  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  the  ruler  of 
one  nation  held  up  another  to  such  final  and 
universal  reprobation.  Only  by  an  unex- 
ampled national  repentance,  can  Germany 
erase  the  record  thus  written  so  deeply  against 
her. 


T\700DR0W  WILSON  does  not  be- 
^  ^  lieve  in  war  as  a  rational  method  of 
civilization.  He  does  not  believe  in  mili- 
tary might  as  a  continuing  mode  of  justice 
or  progress.  He  does  not  believe  that  things 
are  finally  settled  by  war.  He  sees  war  rather 
as  a  means  of  confusing  old  problems,  and  of 
precipitating  needless  problems  new.  He  con- 
cedes to  the  strong  nations  no  right  to  impose 
their  will  upon  the  weak.  He  stands  for  a 
universal  politic  so  new,  so  revolutionary,  so 
creative  of  a  different  world  than  ours,  that 
few  have  begun  to  glimpse  his  vision  or  to  ap- 
prehend his  purpose.  His  eyes  are  fixed  upon 
a  goal  that  is  far  beyond  the  present  faith  of 
nations.  His  inaugural  address  before  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace  is  perhaps  the  most 
pregnant  utterance  of  a  national  chief  in  two 

68 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  69 

thousand  years.  I  know  of  no  man  so  re- 
sponsibly placed  as  Mr.  Wilson  who  has 
spoken  words  so  weighted  with  the  world's  des- 
tiny. He  proposes  a  literal  and  working 
brotherhood  of  nations,  issuing  in  an  ultimately 
co-operative  and  concordant  mankind.  He 
announces  the  use  of  force  to  prevent  instead 
of  to  create  war.  He  declares  that  it  is  the 
business  of  strong  nations  to  be  the  saviours 
and  not  the  exploiters  of  the  nations  which  are 
weak  or  small.  He  overthrows  the  whole  evil 
conception  upon  which  imperialism  is  based. 

Thus  the  use  of  governments  by  the  dealers 
in  national  debts,  by  the  great  concessionaires, 
must,  according  to  Mr.  Wilson's  pronounce- 
ment, come  to  an  end.  Acting  by  this  inter- 
national ethic,  would  Europe  and  America  co- 
operate in  assisting  China  to  develop  her  own 
resources,  her  own  institutions,  her  own  free- 
dom and  social  redemption;  England  would 
pour  such  resources  and  service  into  India  as 
to  enable  India  to  become  a  vast  and  self-gov- 
erning nation  in  herself;  America  would  help 


70  WOODROW    WILSON 

Mexico  to  free  herself  from  both  Mexican 
landlords  and  American  concessionaires.  The 
ethic  has  been  well  expressed  by  President  Wil- 
son himself  in  explaining  to  Miss  Tarbell  his 
actions  toward  Mexico.  *'Do  you  remember," 
he  asked,  "the  angry  crowd  that  was  worked  up 
in  Ephesus  by  a  silversmith  who  told  his  work- 
men that  Paul  would  surely  spoil  their  trade 
of  making  shrines  for  Diana,  if  they  did  not 
stop  his  talk  of  there  being  no  gods  made  by 
hands?  The  men  filled  the  streets,  crying, 
*Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,'  until  the 
town  clerk  came  out  and  said :  *  You  idiots,  no- 
body is  hurting  Diana.  If  you  have  a  com- 
plaint against  any  man,  take  it  to  the  courts, 
but  stop  this  uproar  or  you'll  get  into  trouble.' 
The  episode  in  Ephesus  is  very  like  what  is  go- 
ing on  today  in  the  country  in  regard  to 
Mexico.  A  few  men  who  have  property  down 
there  have  worked  up  a  claque  to  cry:  'Great 
is  order  in  Mexico.'  But  it  is  order  not  for  the 
Mexicans,  but  for  some  of  the  foreign  in- 
vestors. .  .  .  Never,  in  all  of  their  appeals  to 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  71 

me,  has  one  of  them  mentioned  the  fifteen  mil- 
lion Mexicans.  It  is  always  our  investments." 
Speaking  of  the  same  subject  on  another  occa- 
sion, the  President  said:  "I  am  more  inter- 
ested in  the  fortunes  of  oppressed  men  and  piti- 
ful women  and  children  than  in  any  property 
rights  whatever.  Mistakes  I  have  no  doubt 
made  in  this  perplexing  business,  but  not  in 
purpose  or  object.  More  is  involved  than  the 
immediate  destinies  of  Mexico  and  the  rela- 
tions of  the  United  States  with  a  distressed 
and  distracted  people.  All  America  looks  on. 
Test  is  now  being  made  of  us  whether  we  be 
sincere  lovers  of  popular  liberty  or  not,  and  are 
indeed  to  be  trusted  to  respect  national  sov- 
ereignty among  our  weaker  neighbors.'' 


VI 

I  OUGHT  to  say — perhaps  ought  to  have 
said  at  the  beginning — that  I  have  no 
shadow  of  authority  for  interpreting  Wood- 
row  Wilson.  There  has  never  been  speech 
between  us,  nor  have  I  looked  upon 
his  face.  And  were  he  choosing  an  interpreter, 
I  am  sure  it  would  not  be  such  a  one  as  my- 
self. Besides,  I  belong  not  to  his  political 
party:  I  am,  and  shall  be  till  I  die,  a  Socialist 
— even  though  I  know  of  no  Socialist  party,  at 
the  present  time,  that  has  more  than  a  legend- 
ary and  misrepresentative  relation  to  Social- 
ism. 

But  ought  not  all  this  to  give  value  to  my 
appreciation  of  America's  Chief  Servant? 
Whether  it  be  so  or  not,  my  understanding  of 
the  man  I  must  proclaim.  For  I  perceive — or 
certainly   seem   to   perceive — that   Woodrow 

72 


AND   THE   world's    PEACE  73 

Wilson  is  not  only  the  greatest  statesman  that 
has  appeared  in  the  world  for  many  years — 
great  indeed  beyond  comparison  with  any  save 
Lincoln :  he  is  also  a  determined  and  tremend- 
ous radical:  he  is  a  redeemer  of  democracy. 
He  is  revolutionary  beyond  anything  his  words 
reveal,  beyond  anything  his  contemporaries 
have  discerned.  He  has  accomplished  a  com- 
plete change  of  direction  in  the  course  of  Amer- 
ican political  development — in  the  course  of 
the  world's  ongoing  as  well.  He  has  indeed 
been  extraordinarily  shifty  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  things  he  believes  basic  and  right ; 
but  the  shifts  he  has  made  have  been  linked  to- 
gether in  a  divinely  democratic  processional. 

Consequently,  whenever  and  wherever  the 
issue  between  property  and  the  people  has 
been  clear,  in  not  a  single  instance  has  he  stood 
for  property,  but  in  every  instance  for  the  peo- 
ple. In  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks,  as  well  as 
in  other  legislative  achievements,  he  has  know- 
ingly undermined  certain  of  the  foundations 
upon  which  our  capitalist  society  rests;  at  the 


74  WOODROW   WILSON 

same  time,  he  has  been  preparing  foundations 
for  a  truly  co-operative  society.  Without 
proclamation,  with  none  of  the  jargon  common 
to  radicals,  he  has  shown  himself  more  pro- 
foundly conscious  of  the  working-class  than 
many  of  the  working-class  leaders;  and  this 
notwithstanding  his  previous  academic  career 
and  associations.  As  compared  with  Wood- 
row  Wilson,  there  are  Socialist  spokesmen  who 
are  bourbon  in  their  understanding  and  sym- 
pathy. As  contrasted  with  America's  Presi- 
dent, the  parliamentary  leaders  of  German  So- 
cialism are  medieval  reactionaries. 


VII 

T  TrrOODROW  WILSON  believes  in  the 
^  ^  whole  length  and  logic  of  democracy 
— democracy  in  political  relations,  democ- 
racy in  industry,  democracy  in  things  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual.  If  we  could  look  deep 
into  this  man's  soul,  I  think  we  should  find 
there  the  ideal  of  a  world  at  last  arriving  at  a 
universal  communism  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution, with  a  common  and  unfettered  free- 
dom as  regards  the  right  of  each  individual  to 
choose  the  way  in  which  he  shall  go,  and  grow, 
and  give  himself.  Has  he  not  well  hinted  this 
ideal  in  words  spoken  at  his  dedication  of  Lin- 
coln's birthplace?  "Is  not  this,"  he  asks,  "an 
altar  upon  which  we  may  forever  keep  alive  the 
vestal  fire  of  democracy  as  upon  a  shrine  at 
which  some  of  the  deepest  and  most  sacred 
hopes  must  constantly  be  rekindled?  And 
only  those  who  live  can  rekindle  them.     The 

75 


7Q  WOODROW   WILSON 

only  stuff  that  can  retain  the  life-giving  heat  is 
the  stuff  of  living  hearts.  And  the  hopes  of 
mankind  cannot  be  kept  alive  by  words  merely, 
by  constitutions  and  doctrines  of  right  and 
codes  of  liberty.  The  object  of  democracy  is 
to  transmute  these  into  the  life  and  action  of  so- 
ciety, the  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  heroic 
men  and  women  willing  to  make  their  lives  an 
embodiment  of  right  and  service  and  enlight- 
ened purpose.  The  commands  of  democracy 
are  as  imperative  as  its  privileges  and  oppor- 
tunities are  wide  and  generous.  Its  compul- 
sion is  upon  us.  It  will  be  great  and  lift  a 
great  light  for  the  guidance  of  the  nations  only 
if  we  are  great  and  carry  that  light  high  for 
the  guidance  of  our  own  feet.  We  are  not 
worthy  to  stand  here  unless  we  ourselves  be  in 
deed  and  in  truth  real  democrats  and  servants 
of  mankind,  ready  to  give  our  very  lives  for  the 
freedom  and  justice  and  spiritual  exaltation  of 
the  great  nation  which  shelters  and  nurtures 


us." 


Woodrow  Wilson  beholds  this  vision,  he  f  ol- 


AND   THE  world's   PEACE  77 

lows  this  faith,  because  he  is  both  sturdily  and  V 
mystically  Christian  in  his  view  of  our  com-  / 
mon  life's  collective  possibilities.  The  utter- 
most democracy,  the  democracy  that  scales  the 
whole  human  octave,  is  to  him  the  certain  issue 
of  the  idea  for  which  Jesus  lived  and  died. 
This  man  conceives,  with  John  Milton  and  Al- 
fred the  Great,  with  John  Stuart  Mill  and 
Joseph  Mazzini,  that  the  mind  of  mutual  serv- 
ice, the  literal  and  general  application  of  the 
law  of  love,  is  the  only  practicable  social  basis, 
the  only  national  security,  the  only  foundation 
for  international  peace.  He  believes  that  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  ultimate  consti- 
tution of  mankind ;  and  he  intends,  by  hook  or 
crook  if  you  will,  by  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent 
and  the  secrecy  of  the  priest,  to  get  this  founda- 
tion underneath  the  unaware  American  nation. 
He  cunningly  hopes,  he  divinely  schemes,  to 
bring  it  about  that  America,  awake  at  last  to 
her  national  selfhood  and  calling,  shall  become 
as  a  colossal  Christian  apostle,  shepherding  the 
world  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 


Ill 
HIS  INITIAL  EFFORT 

First  published,  under  the  title  of  *'The  Note  of  President 

Wilsonf  in  the  Journal  de  Geneve,  December  31, 

igi6,  on  the  occasion  of  President  Wilson  s 

note,  addressed  to  all  the  belligerent 

nations,  of  December  18, 


HIS  INITIAL  EFFORT 


THE  European  state  of  mind  regarding 
President  Wilson's  note  seems  to  be  one 
of  bewilderment — of  bewilderment  mingled 
with  tepid  hope.  There  have  been  attempts 
at  criticism,  and  many  discussions;  but  they 
have  been  aimless,  on  the  whole,  and  extraor- 
dinarily tame  and  ineffectual.  Journalists  and 
statesmen  feel  compelled  to  speak,  but  what  to 
say  appears  beyond  their  powers  of  compre- 
hension. They  seem  unable  to  conceive  or  even 
guess  what  the  President  means;  and,  rather 
than  the  confused  contributions  they  have  prof- 
fered their  respective  publics,  it  would  have 
been  better  if  they  had  frankly  confessed  their 
inability.  Nor  does  one  of  the  Western 
Powers  know  precisely  how  the  note  is  taken 

81 


82  WOODROW   WILSON 

by  another;  and  the  Central  Powers  approach 
a  like  predicament.  Curiously  enough,  how- 
ever, it  is  England  that  has  misconstrued  the 
note  most  completely,  while  it  is  Germany  that 
somewhat  perceives  the  President's  purpose. 
And  the  perception  is  tremendously  disturbing 
to  Germany's  masters. 

Probably  this  is  what  Mr.  Wilson  expected ; 
for  his  note  was  written  for  Germany,  and  it  is 
through  diplomatic  necessity  that  he  addressed 
it  to  the  belligerents  in  common.  It  is  this 
diplomatic  necessity  that  has  masked  his  mean- 
ing in  what  seems  an  unemotional  and  repre- 
hensible impartiality,  and  that  has  brought 
such  stupefaction  to  Europe. 

Yet  the  note  is,  in  effect,  nothing  else  than  an 
ultimatum  to  Germany.  It  is  an  ultimatum 
that  may  bring  either  peace  or  war ;  but  surely 
it  is  war  rather  than  peace  it  portends.  For 
Mr.  Wilson  knows  that,  if  the  war  continues, 
his  country  cannot  much  longer  remain  apart. 
The  world  cannot  go  on  burning,  and  so  big  a 
house  as  the  United  States  of  America  escape 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  83 

the  flames.  In  one  way  or  another,  America 
must  try  to  put  out  the  fire,  try  to  bring  the 
conflict  to  a  righteous  conclusion — first  decid- 
ing, however,  on  which  side  she  conceives  the 
tents  of  righteousness  to  stand,  and  then  align 
herself  with  that  side.  It  is  to  this  end  that 
each  of  the  two  groups  of  belligerents  is  asked 
to  state  what  it  is  fighting  for,  and  what  terms 
of  peace  will  satisfy  it;  for  only  so  may  the 
American  States  intelligently  decide  with 
which  group  to  throw  their  probably  conclusive 
resources. 


II 

T)UT,  it  will  be  asked,  why  does  he  appar- 
-■^  ently  place  the  belligerents  all  upon  the 
same  moral  level?  This  is  indeed  a  pertinent 
and  momentous  question.  If  he  actually 
means  to  treat  the  assassins  of  Belgian  and 
Serbian  nationalities,  the  murderers  of  the 
Armenian  people,  the  breakers  of  treaties,  the 
slayers  of  children,  the  violators  of  women,  the 
destroyers  of  churches,  as  entitled  to  equal  con- 
sideration with  the  defenders  of  France  and 
Belgium  and  Serbia,  then  indeed  has  President 
Wilson  intolerably  offended  that  remnant  of 
mankind  which  still  hath  power  to  discriminate 
between  atrocious  wrong  and  trampled  right. 
But  let  us  not  be  hasty  in  saying  this  is  what 
he  has  done.  He  only  says  that  the  belliger- 
ents claim  to  be  fighting  for  the  same  ends,  and 
to  be  asking  for  the  same  terms  of  peace.     He 

84 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  85 

would  like  to  know  if  this  is  true.  Will  each 
belligerent  state  its  terms,  so  that  America  and 
the  other  neutral  nations  may  judge?  And  by 
this  simple  request,  Mr.  Wilson  may  be  plac- 
ing Germany  in  the  worst  possible  position:  he 
may  be  taking  the  very  course  that  will  ex- 
pose her  moral  nakedness  to  the  world. 

Indeed,  more  than  any  other  method  he  could 
have  devised,  will  Mr.  Wilson's  demand  dis- 
close the  responsibility  for  the  war;  and,  fur- 
thermore, it  will  reveal  that  the  issue  of  Amer- 
ica is  substantially  with  Germany  alone.  For 
the  terms  of  the  Allies  are  well  enough  known : 
they  have  been  repeatedly  and  frankly  stated. 
England  seeks  nothing  in  Europe  for  herself; 
but  she  requires  complete  restitution  for  Bel- 
gium, and  the  same  for  France,  coupled  with 
the  return  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  She  also  in- 
sists upon  the  restoration  and  reunion  of  the 
Servian  peoples  in  a  greater  Servian  kingdom. 
She  demands,  in  fine,  the  freedom  of  each  peo- 
ple to  choose  its  own  national  affiliations  and 
social    development.     The    requirements    of 


86  WOODROW   WILSON 

France  are  identical  with  those  of  England. 
Italy  asks  for  herself  that  part  of  the  Italian 
nation  which  is  still  under  the  dominion  of 
Austria ;  for  the  rest  of  Europe,  Italy's  wishes 
are  identical  with  those  of  England  and 
France.  The  problem  of  Russia  and  Con- 
stantinople is  more  complicated,  and  has  been 
carefully  avoided ;  but  it  would  be  best  that  the 
Allies  frankly  state  their  engagement  with 
Russia.  For  America  will  be  the  last  to  be 
disturbed  by  the  political  transfer  of  Constan- 
tinople. No  country  is  so  desirous  as  America 
of  ridding  both  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  of 
Turkish  dominion.  Probably  America  would 
ask  for  an  independent  Armenian  state,  as  she 
has  always  had  a  special  interest  in  the  Ar- 
menian people. 

Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  has  not  the 
slightest  intention  of  stating  her  terms,  now  or 
at  any  time.  She  will  deal  only  in  vague  and 
bemazing  generalities,  plausibly  and  patheti- 
cally expressed.  Her  proposed  negotiations 
for  peace  have  no  other  end  than  the  decep- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  87 

tion  of  the  world  and  the  gaining  of  time  and 
sympathy — no  other  motive  than  the  prolonga- 
tion of  her  power  to  keep  and  to  conquer.  If 
she  can  compel  or  seduce  the  Allies  to  a  con- 
ference, she  will  propose  terms  befitting  a  con- 
queror, even  though  foreknowing  their  rejec- 
tion. During  the  continuance  of  such  a  con- 
ference, perhaps  not  less  than  a  year,  she  could 
greatly  renew  her  resources,  while  France  and 
Russia  would  be  but  the  more  depleted.  The 
end  of  the  conference  would  be  that  Germany 
would  gain  by  trickery  and  treachery  much  of 
what  she  failed  to  obtain  by  war. 

Germany  dreams  not  of  peace  upon  any 
other  terms — upon  any  other  terms  than  such 
as  will  leave  her  the  overlordship  of  Middle 
Europe  and  of  Asia  Minor ;  leave  her,  in  fact, 
in  possession  of  an  empire  stretching  from 
Hamburg  to  Bagdad,  with  India  and  China  in 
the  horizon.  After  having  fought  the  foulest 
war,  all  things  considered,  that  history  affords, 
she  now  seeks  to  fasten  upon  the  world  a  still 
fouler  peace — both  the  war  and  the  peace  hav- 


88  WOODROW   WILSON 

ing  this  pan-Germany  empery  for  their  goal. 
If  she  succeeds,  then  for  a  long  time  to  come 
there  will  be  small  breathing-room  for  the  soul 
of  man  upon  this  planet,  and  less  of  freedom 
for  his  mind. 

In  the  accomplishment  of  this  empery,  Ger- 
many can  well  dissemble — well  afford  to  make, 
for  the  moment,  what  seem  to  be  generous  con- 
cessions. But  her  largest  concessions  would  be 
trifling  in  comparison  with  her  vast  imperial 
gains  in  the  South  and  the  East.  Besides,  she 
knows  well  enough  that,  if  she  is  allowed  to 
keep  the  Balkans  and  Turkey,  it  will  be  but  a 
few  years  till  France  and  Belgium  are  help- 
lessly hers.  This,  nor  aught  else,  is  the  real 
purpose  of  the  German  peace  propositions. 

It  is  to  bring  the  German  purpose  into  the 
open  that  President  Wilson  has  made  his  re- 
quest. He  has  undertaken  to  compel  Ger- 
many to  show  her  hand,  in  order  that,  in  case  of 
refusal,  the  American  people  will  support  him 
in  the  course  he  must  consequently  take. 
Either  Germany  must  place  all  her  terms  upon 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  89 

the  table,  and  prove  them  such  as  to  satisfy  the 
new  international  conscience  Mr.  Wilson  has 
called  into  being,  or  she  must  add  America  to 
the  number  of  her  enemies.  And  it  is  thus  that 
the  first  point  of  our  President's  note  is  not 
peace  but  war. 


Ill 

1 
T)UT  the  note  has  also  a  more  amazing  im- 

■*-'  port  than  the  psychological  preparation 
of  the  American  people;  and  that  is,  the  op- 
portunity it  affords  the  German  Empire  to 
end  not  only  the  present  war,  but  all  war,  and 
to  give  a  common  and  upbuilding  peace  to  the 
family  of  nations.  Never,  in  the  whole  unin- 
telligible and  wasteful  history  of  man,  have 
the  rulers  of  a  nation  had  a  chance  so  replete 
with  redemptive  possibility  as  that  which  our 
President  has  presented  to  the  rulers  of  Ger- 
many. Let  her — if  I  may  redeem  a  term  from 
the  gambler — call  the  President's  divine  bluff: 
let  her  stake  her  existence  and  destiny  upon  one 
throw  of  faith,  one  inclusive  and  irrevocable 
renunciation,  one  challenging  and  creative  af- 
firmation of  man's  basic  and  inviolable  brother- 
hood.    Let  her  transmute  her  incredible  cap- 

90 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  91 

acity  for  deception  and  intrigue  into  one  celes- 
tial trick  upon  the  human  race.  Let  her  in- 
stantly and  specifically,  without  qualification 
or  reservation,  give  an  answer  that  shall  ac- 
cord with  Mr.  Wilson's  invitation.  Let  her 
place  upon  the  table  such  conditions  of  peace 
as  shall  win  the  sympathy  and  applause  of  even 
her  foes.  Let  her  volunteer  the  complete  res- 
toration of  Belgium  and  France,  of  the  Bal- 
kans as  well,  with  compensation  for  all  that 
these  invaded  countries  have  suffered.  Let 
her  propose  the  full  and  true  rehabihtation  of 
Poland,  including  the  provinces  attached  to 
Prussia.  Let  her  require  the  integration  of 
all  the  Serbs,  and  the  union  of  all  the  Italians. 
Let  her  demand  that  the  Dardanelles  be  con- 
sidered an  integral  part  of  the  Mediterranean, 
neutral  and  open  to  all  nations  equally.  Let 
her  ask  that  Constantinople  be  set  apart  as  the 
seat  of  an  International  Tribunal — ^the  conse- 
crated capitol  of  a  renascent  and  resolute 
Christendom. 

If  this  she  will  but  do — if  she  will  but  see  and 


92  WOODROW   WILSON 

seize  her  prodigious  opportunity ;  if  she  will  but 
realize  this  new  kind  of  national  integrity,  this 
new  order  of  national  being,  then  may  Ger- 
many, even  now  and  at  once,  step  into  a  place 
of  stupendous  spiritual  leadership,  her  sons 
becoming  the  first  born  of  that  superhumanity 
which  the  prophets  of  all  times  and  races  fore- 
tell. 

She  cannot  bring  back  the  dead,  of  course, 
nor  restore  the  desolate  or  vanished  homes. 
She  cannot  evoke  armies  of  eager  workers  and 
lovers,  of  fathers  and  brothers,  from  the  miles 
and  miUions  of  graves  which  are  the  seal  she 
has  now  set  upon  the  earth.  But  she  can  make 
even  these,  by  her  own  repentance  and  rebirth, 
fruitful  with  new  life  for  the  world. 

It  is  possible  for  Germany  to  speak  now  the 
apocalyptic  word — to  take  now  the  apocalyptic 
step.  It  is  possible  that  there  are  among  the 
German  tribes  men  sane  and  saintly  enough, 
men  of  requisite  faith  and  courage,  to  sound  the 
trumpet  that  shall  waken  these  tribes,  once  and 
for  all,  from  the  loathsome  hypnosis  which 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  93 

none  other  than  some  sort  of  Satan  could  have 
laid  upon  them.  It  is  possible  for  Germany 
to  rise  from  her  deep  spiritual  night,  from  the 
orgy  of  murder  and  lying  and  madness  she  has 
therein  precipitated,  and  to  invite  then  the  na- 
tions to  unite  with  her  in  a  peace  that  shall  be 
both  social  and  international.  It  is  even  pos- 
sible that  Germany  might  suddenly  beseek 
Woodrow  Wilson  to  lead  the  world  in  the  pur- 
suit of  this  ineffable  goal. 


IV 

THE  Allies  are  not  without  responsibility 
here.  They  say,  and  sincerely  I  believe, 
they  have  no  intention  of  crushing  Germany. 
But  why  not  make  this  clear  to  the  German 
peoples — why  not  now  appeal  to  them,  plainly 
and  unreservedly,  even  over  or  under  the 
thrones  of  their  rulers?  Are  there  no  states- 
men in  England  or  France  of  such  stature  and 
strength  as  to  rend  the  veil  of  an  antique  and 
subterranean  diplomacy — to  step  forth  from 
its  enmeshments  and  address  the  German  na- 
tion in  terms  that  shall  be  human  and  familiar? 
It  may  be  that  it  is  the  German  head  that  has 
gone  wrong — not  the  heart;  and  that  if  the 
real  heart  of  Germany  were  authentically  and 
wisely  invoked,  it  would  repent  and  respond — 
even  to  the  extent  of  disencumbering  itself  of 
its  Prussian  rulers  and  teachers. 

94 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  95 

For  the  moment,  we  can  only  wait — ^wait 
with  wonder  and  anguish — ^to  see  whether  the 
present  hmnan  night  will  darken  and  deepen, 
or  if  some  unforeseen  day  of  deliverance  will 
break.  It  is  the  world's  most  breathless  mo- 
ment. The  human  race  trembles  in  the  bal- 
ance. The  war,  if  it  continues,  may  slip  from 
the  control  of  its  makers  and  masters.  A  turn 
of  some  irresponsible  hand,  even  an  idle  word, 
may  start  the  race  on  its  new  and  tremendous 
upward  or  downward  way.  Either  we  shall 
soon  be  plunging  into  chaos,  and  the  creation 
of  the  world  begin  over  again,  with  perhaps  but 
a  human  remnant  in  the  Creator's  hand,  or  the 
nations  must  come  to  some  swift  resolution, 
some  divine  determination,  taking  the  course 
of  evolution  in  hand  and  definitely  shaping  our 
common  future  according  to  a  dehberate  so- 
cial and  spiritual  choice. 

Yet  now,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the 
lead  is  with  Germany.  Through  some  mys- 
terious dispensation  of  destiny,  it  is  Germany 
that  still  holds  the  scales  of  decision.    We  are 


96  WOODROW   WILSON 

far  from  snatching  the  scales  from  her  hands. 
But  it  is  possible  that,  through  an  unprece- 
dented and  Pentecostal  revolution,  she  may  yet 
humbly  entreat  the  nations  to  join  her  in  hold- 
ing the  mystic  balance  of  a  harmonized  world. 


IV 

THE  PRO-GERMAN  MORALITY 
OF  THE  PACIFIST 

This  paper,  written   in   reply   to   pacifist  perversions  of 

President  Wilson  s  unfortunate  phrase,  ''peace  without 

victory"   was    originally   published   in   two   parts — 

the  first  in  II  Giornale  d' It  alia,  Rome,  March  4, 

jgi7;  the  second,  in  the  April  number  of 

La  Revue  Mensuelle,  Geneva, 


THE  PRO-GERMAN 

MORALITY    OF 

THE  PACIFIST 


RECENTLY  and  severely,  an  eminent 
Continental  critic  rebuked  the  writer  of 
this  paper  for  declaring  that  the  European 
war  is  in  reality  between  two  religions,  two  op- 
posing principles  of  life — one  of  these  being 
embodied  in  the  Germanism  that  seeks  world- 
dominion  by  the  might  of  its  will  and  its 
weapons,  the  other  being  the  continuing  pur- 
pose and  presence  of  him  we  call  the  Christ. 
To  the  mind  of  the  critic,  Christ  is  neutral  as 
regards  the  war,  holding  with  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other  group  of  belligerents,  nor  con- 
cerned as  to  which  shall  be  triumphant.  Or 
rather,  Christ  is  in  equal  opposition  to  all  the 


100  WOODROW   WILSON 

fighters:  he  is  the  Prince  of  Peace  only,  hav- 
ing part  with  none  but  the  pacifist.  Practi- 
cally, if  the  critic's  conception  be  true,  Christ 
is  the  Divine  Absentee,  detachedly  awaiting 
the  termination  of  the  battles,  and  to  be  called 
upon  as  the  last  resort  of  mankind.  Of  the 
Christ  who  avowed  that  he  came  not  to  bring 
peace  but  a  sword,  who  declared  that  he  had 
kindled  a  fire  in  the  earth  which  none  could  put 
out  till  the  justice  of  love  prevailed — of  him 
the  critic  seems  never  to  have  heard. 

Yet  it  is  the  militant  Christ  who  is  real,  who 
accords  with  both  history  and  the  gospels :  the 
Christ  of  the  critic  hath  no  reahty.  He  is  but 
an  artifice  indeed — the  pale  and  nearly  puerile 
contrivance  of  men  who  would  escape  the  risks 
of  the  real  Christ's  robust  adventure.  It  is  a 
curious  trinity  that  finds  refuge  from  faith  in 
this  contrivance:  there  is  first  an  emasculate 
pacifism,  busy  and  fretful  and  often  ferocious, 
and  claiming  Jesus  for  its  founder  and  Tolstoy 
for  its  prophet;  then  follows  a  decadent  intel- 
lectualism,  an  erotic  and  exhausted  modem- 


AND   THE   world's    PEACE  101 

ity,  lounging  and  voluminously  lisping,  and 
resorting  to  religion  for  a  last  sensation;  and 
third  in  order  comes  the  fashionable  reformer 
and  social  worker — his  £esthetics  and  his  sta- 
tistics deranged,  his  sensibilities  insufferably 
shocked,  his  popularity  altogether  impaired,  by 
the  sudden  gross  arrival  of  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. And  it  is  these  who, — annoyed  with 
God's  unexpected  way  of  doing,  resentful  at 
having  the  strife  between  light  and  darkness 
dragged  definitely  into  the  open,  affecting  a 
superior  world-sorrow  and  languishing  in 
regions  of  pietistic  fatigue  "above  the  battle," 
— it  is  these  who  are  now  the  choicest  servants 
of  an  anointing  Germanism. 

I  do  not  mean  that  Christ  is  other  than  the 
Prince  of  Peace :  he  stands  for  a  peace  so  pro- 
found, so  determined  and  delectable,  that  it 
surpasses  any  experience  or  understanding  of 
our  mortal  commonalty.  But  it  is  a  peace 
proceeding  from  the  conquest  of  life,  and  not 
from  evasion  or  compromise.  It  is  a  peace 
that  will  be  reached,  if  ever  it  possess  the 


102  WOODROW    WILSON 

earth,  through  spiritual  assault  and  assimila- 
tion— through  the  capture  and  orchestration  of 
all  material  and  mechanic  facts,  all  the  nat- 
ural and  social  forces,  with  which  man  has  to 
do. 

Christ  needs  no  invitation  to  the  thick  of  the 
human  struggle :  he  has  never  been  absent  from 
it.  It  was  there  he  spoke,  there  he  did  his 
work;  and  it  was  there  that,  because  of  the 
things  he  said  and  did,  he  was  haled  to  an  out- 
law's death.  And  afterward,  in  the  wondrous 
Christian  springtime,  when  to  follow  Christ 
was  the  most  romantic  thing  a  man  could  do, 
his  disciples  were  ecstatic  warriors.  Even 
when  they  defended  not  their  individual  names 
or  persons,  they  were  never  neutral  as  regards 
conflicts  or  principles  or  institutions.  The 
Revelation  of  St.  John — which  is  a  philosophy 
of  history  as  well  as  the  greatest  of  all  sym- 
boUcal  literature — is  a  book  of  war.  The  only 
ones  with  whom  the  apostle  and  his  Master 
seemed  altogether  impatient  were  the  neutrals ; 
and  these  John  represents  as  being  so  disgust- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  103 

ing  that  his  Lord  spewed  them  out  of  his 
mouth.  The  soul  that  refused  to  take  sides, 
that  was  destitute  of  conviction  and  passion 
and  color,  was  repulsive  and  intolerable.  The 
neutralism  that  decried  decision,  the  pacifism 
that  disestablished  judgment — these  furnished 
the  last  and  most  loathsome  immorality.  And 
it  is  no  less  than  a  blasphemy,  no  less  than  a 
besmirchment  of  his  name,  which  places  the 
Christ  apart  from  the  battles  of  the  day.  The 
world-war  and  its  woes,  and  the  whole  tragic 
pilgrimage  of  man,  the  total  track  and  tramp 
of  history,  are  across  and  within  his  inclusive 
heart. 

Nor  does  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse  dif- 
fer, in  his  opinion  of  the  neutralist,  from  the 
apostles  and  law-givers  who  came  before  and 
after  him.  Isaiah  viewed  the  lukewarm  and 
the  neutral  with  especial  horror.  Solon  con- 
sidered that  the  state  might  forgive  its  outward 
enemies  and  its  inward  rebels;  but  he  thought 
the  neutrals  should  straightway  be  put  to 
death.     And  to  Mazzini  these  were  the  black- 


104  WOODROW   WILSON 

est  of  abominations :  the  worst  of  the  pro- Aus- 
trians  were  inteUigible  and  pardonable,  but 
neutrality  was  such  a  particular  profanation 
of  man's  essential  divinity,  was  such  a  mean 
perversion  of  man's  reason  for  being,  that  it 
was  fit  only  to  be  despised — fit  only  to  be  de- 
nied moral  consideration,  and  to  be  cast  from 
the  midst  of  the  spiritual  decencies. 

Yet  behold  now  this  neutrality,  wedded  to  a 
pacifism  without  intelligence  or  moral  content, 
making  its  widening  and  devitalizing  way,  and 
producing  an  increasing  helplessness  to  appre- 
hend the  meaning  of  the  hour ! 


II 

WE  here  come  upon  the  dreadest  evil 
that  has  issued  from  the  fall  of  our 
fabled  civilization.  To  those  of  us  who  per- 
ceive, or  think  we  perceive,  that  mankind  is 
one  hving  and  continuing  organism,  one  eter- 
nal mutual-membered  family,  it  is  not  the 
number  of  the  dead  that  scores  most  heavily 
against  the  war.  Not  the  millions  of  its  man- 
gled and  slain,  not  the  material  ruin  it  has 
wrought,  not  the  wide  desolate  districts 
wherein  none  but  the  aged  and  the  widowed 
and  the  orphaned  now  dwell — not  this,  not 
this  is  the  war's  worst  result.  Rather  is  it  the 
moral  blight,  the  spiritual  paralysis,  which  cer- 
tain forces  within  and  around  the  war  are  in- 
flicting upon  the  soul  of  the  world.  And  it  is 
this  which  so  teiTifies,  today,  such  as  have  set 
their  hopes  upon  a  changed  world — upon  an 
uprisen  and  radiant  humanity. 

105 


Ill 

THUS  it  is  the  habit  of  the  neutrahst,  the 
purpose  of  the  pacifist — a  habit,  a  pur- 
pose, pursued  with  a  well-nigh  sottish  persist- 
ence— to  compel  a  regard  for  the  contending 
nations  as  equals  in  national  morality.  And 
how  can  we  reason  with  such — how  can  we  rea- 
son with  men  who  repeat  that  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  the  German  occupation  of  Bel- 
gium and  the  Franco-English  occupation  of 
Greece?  Germany  invaded  Belgium  in  viola- 
tion of  her  own  signed  treaty,  and  with  no 
provocation  except  the  lust  for  Paris.  Beau- 
tiful Belgian  cities.  Christian  and  Gothic 
treasures  which  Philip  of  Spain  respected,  an- 
cient shrines  which  survived  even  the  raid  of 
Attila,  scores  of  villages  and  farmsteads  and 
factories,  are  now  rubbish  and  ashes.  Un- 
numbered thousands  of  Belgium's  people  are 

106 


AND  THE  WORLD^S  PEACE  107' 

dead  from  murder  and  cold  and  hunger.  Her 
women  have  been  violated,  her  children  tor- 
tured and  slain,  her  families  dismembered,  and 
well-nigh  half  a  million  men  and  women  have 
been  carried  into  slavery.  Three  million  Bel- 
gians are  refugees  and  exiles.  All  Belgium  is 
now  a  land  of  mental  sorrow  and  physical  mis- 
ery— a  nation  in  chains,  a  people  scourged  be- 
yond modern  comparison  or  beUef . 

And  Greece?  Not  a  man  or  a  woman  or 
a  child  has  been  harmed,  not  a  house  destroyed. 
The  Greeks  have  been  protected  from  the 
treachery  of  their  Germanophile  king  by  the 
two  countries,  France  and  England,  to  which 
Greece  owes  her  liberty;  and  the  Allies  will 
doubtless  leave  Greece  in  a  far  better  moral 
and  material  condition  than  that  in  which  they 
found  her.  Even  granting  the  violation  of 
neutrality,  there  is  no  similarity  between  the 
Allied  occupation  of  Greece  and  the  German 
destruction  of  Belgium;  and  it  is  only  the  hard- 
iest distortion  of  facts  that  presents  the  two 
cases  as  similar. 


108  WOODROW   WILSON 

And  what  shall  we  do  with  pacifists  so 
brazen  as  to  place  the  Turkish  rule  of  Armenia 
beside  the  English  occupation  of  Egypt?  I 
am  among  those  who  have  declared,  again  and 
again,  for  Egyptian  autonomy;  and  there  are 
many  Englishmen  who  today  are  pledged  to 
the  self-government  of  both  Egypt  and  India. 
But  we  would  preserve,  when  we  speak  of 
these  things,  some  decent  sense  of  moral  pro- 
portion. However  blundering  and  unsym- 
pathetic it  be  in  some  of  its  methods  and  as- 
pects, we  would  not  place  the  English  govern- 
ment of  alien  peoples  upon  a  level  with  the 
Turkish  system  of  government  by  plunder  and 
murder. 

A  Germanized  Turkey,  under  the  protec- 
tion and  patronage  of  an  ostensibly  Christian 
Kaiser,  has  practically  exterminated  the  Ar- 
menian nation.  Horrors  have  been  perpe- 
trated upon  the  Armenians  that  have  no 
parallel — not  even  in  the  persecution  of  the 
early  Christians. 

Put  Egypt  beside  Armenia.     Before  the 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  109 

English  occupation,  the  Egyptian  people  were 
the  helpless  prey  of  their  Turkish  pashas. 
They  were  a  nation  of  plundered  serfs,  gov- 
erned by  rapine  and  without  law,  steeped  in 
hopeless  poverty,  living  in  unlighted  despair. 
Egypt  has  indeed  been  a  land  of  unbroken 
night  for  two  thousand  years,  except  for  the 
one  glorious  epoch  of  Neoplatonic  and  early 
Christian  Alexandria.  England  has  given 
order,  education,  cleanliness,  hope  and  com- 
parative happiness.  It  is  true,  she  has  ex- 
ploited the  Egyptians;  she  has  delayed  giving 
them  self-government;  but  it  is  also  true  she 
has  given  them  the  light  of  day,  and  probably 
the  first  security  they  have  had  in  the  course 
of  their  history.  I  have  myself  talked  with 
farmers  along  a  thousand  miles  of  the  Nile, 
and  I  know  it  is  not  they  who  clamor  for  an 
end  of  the  English  occupation.  It  is  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Turkish  masters,  looking  with 
covetous  eyes  upon  the  wealth  which  England 
has  developed.  And  they  who  have  the  hardi- 
hood to  put  upon  the  same  moral  level  the  Eng- 


110  WOODROW  WILSON 

lish  occupation  of  Egypt  and  the  Turkish  con- 
trol of  Armenia,  as  has  been  done  by  French 
pacifists  and  German  pubhcists, — these  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  moral  argument. 


IV 

NOR  matters  how  obvious  or  odious  it  be, 
to  each  decoy  which  Germany  sends  forth 
the  pacifist  responds  with  his  daft  indorsement, 
his  inane  applause.  Decoy  after  decoy,  deceit 
after  deceit,  is  borne  from  BerHn  upon  pacifist 
banners  or  by  neutral  messengers.  It  was  by 
these  the  plan  for  peace  without  victory  was 
proclaimed,  and  by  these  the  Belgian  atrocities 
have  been  explained  away.  One  such  pacifist, 
an  American  educator  of  high  standing,  writes 
me  an  indignant  letter  about  the  injustice  with 
which  Germany  has  been  treated  in  regard  to 
Belgium.  She  had  not  carried  the  Belgians 
into  slavery;  she  had  only  expatriated  them 
out  of  regard  for  their  welfare;  she  had 
marched  them  across  the  Rhine  in  order  to 
keep  them  from  starvation  and  deterioration; 

— such  is  the  expressed  opinion  of  my  friend. 

Ill 


112  WOODROW   WILSON 

Nor  does  he  differ  in  this  from  Dr.  Krebs, 
the  eminent  German-Catholic  historian.  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Krebs,  the  Germans  have  be- 
haved with  "the  patience  of  angels";  and 
the  deeds  done  against  them  by  the  German 
soldiery  were  the  fault  of  the  obdurate  Bel- 
gians themselves.  And  recently  his  state- 
ment has  been  approved  by  an  authoritative 
American  pacifist — a  member  of  the  Stock- 
holm Conference. 

But  let  us  take  the  reception  of  the  Ger- 
man imposture  of  Polish  independence  as  a 
special  instance  of  the  pacifist's  moral  inca- 
pacity. The  so-called  reconstruction  of  Po- 
land, as  planned  and  announced  by  Germany, 
was  a  fraud  so  obvious  and  brazen,  that  it 
seemed  impossible  for  the  most  stolid  pacifist 
to  misapprehend  it.  It  was  not  at  all  a  plan 
for  Polish  rehabilitation,  but  for  a  final  Polish 
dissolution.  It  was  a  scheme  to  annex  Poland 
to  Prussia — that  and  nothing  else ;  and,  in  the 
meanwhile,  the  Poles  might  be  seduced  or  con- 
scripted into  the  German  army,  there  to  fight 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  113 

for  their  own  destruction.  Representative 
Poles  of  London  and  Paris  warned  the  world 
against  the  deception.  Yet  the  warnings 
counted  for  nothing  so  far  as  the  pacifists  were 
concerned.  The  tragic  fraud,  transparent 
and  exposed  though  it  was,  became  the  basis 
of  a  serious  propaganda  for  Poland,  and  the 
German  deception  was  acclaimed, — in  Amer- 
ica and  Switzerland  and  even  France, — as  a 
Polish  realization. 


OR  again,  consider  how  successful  has  been 
the  pacifist  propaganda  against  Brit- 
ish navalism— British  navalism  thus  placed 
upon  one  moral  level  with  Prussian  militarism, 
and  presented  as  an  equal  international  men- 
ace. It  is  easy  to  agree  that  the  seas  should 
not  be  under  the  dominion  or  protection  of 
any  one  power;  about  that  there  need  be  no 
debate.  But  so  long  as  there  is  no  interna- 
tional agreement  or  arrangement,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  naval  supremacy  could  have  been 
exercised  more  justly  and  generously  than 
England  has  exercised  hers.  No  nation  has 
been  hurt  or  hindered  by  the  existence  of  the 
British  navy;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  British 
navy  that  has  protected  the  world  from  the 
German  menace.  On  two  occasions,  the  ships 
of  England  stood  between  America  and  a  Ger- 

114 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  115 

man  intervention.  But  this  was  to  limit  or 
prevent  war:  so  far  as  commerce  is  concerned, 
the  merchant  fleets  of  Germany  have  gone 
where  they  would,  into  all  the  ports  of  the 
British  dominions,  unhindered  and  unmolested 
by  the  British  navy.  And  there  is  not  the 
smallest  merchant  ship  of  the  smallest  nation 
that  has  not  had  utter  freedom  to  spread  its 
sails  wherever  the  British  flag  symbolized  the 
presence  of  British  power.  Great  Britain  has 
policed  the  seas  of  the  world,  and  the  world  has 
reaped  the  benefit  of  the  protection.  And  the 
hardiest  pacifist  is  not  so  unintelligent  as  not  to 
know  that  he  is  both  arbitrary  and  base  in  his 
attempt  to  equalize  the  good  and  the  evil  of 
Prussian  militarism  and  British  navalism. 


VI 

MEANWHILE,  under  the  cover  of  the 
confusion  which  her  pacifist  mission- 
aries create,  German  marshals  anew  her  mahgn 
forces;  anew  she  prepares  her  march  against 
the  spiritual  being  of  humanity. 

For  more  than  forty  years,  this  German 
menace  has  been  productive  of  an  increasing 
political  and  spiritual  derangement  of  the  na- 
tions. For  more  than  forty  years,  this  tramp- 
ling terror  and  threat  in  the  heart  of  Europe 
has  prevented  the  world  from  settling  down  to 
social  and  political  reconstruction.  As  little 
as  the  city  may  live  normally  if  mad  dogs  are 
loose  in  the  streets,  so  the  world  is  unable  to 
pursue  its  normal  and  nobler  development  with 
the  Prussian  loose  in  its  midst. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  Prussian  sword — it  is  the 
whole  mind  of  Prussia  that  is  deranging  and 

116 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  117 

debauching  the  nations.  Like  the  progress  of 
a  mysterious  plague,  this  German  mentahty 
goes  forth,  foreboding  the  psychic  subjection 
of  the  world.  One  by  one,  often  group  by 
group,  intellectuals  and  internationalists  go 
down  before  its  devices.  Peace  conferences, 
Socialist  parties,  Roman  Catholic  organiza- 
tions, the  men  of  letters  who  feel  themselves 
superior  to  the  strife,  the  men  of  money  who 
fear  the  escape  of  the  nations  from  their  con- 
trol— these  all  unite  in  the  German  agendum. 
And  unless  this  German  mental  penetration  be 
discerned  for  what  it  is,  unless  it  be  transmuted 
and  its  present  and  former  works  destroyed, 
the  world  itself  will  be  subdued  and  destroyed. 
For  verily,  Germany  is  even  now  overcom- 
ing the  world — overcoming  it  secretly  and 
psychically — overcoming  it  despite  her  crimes, 
her  infidelities,  her  losses,  and  the  addition  of 
strong  nations  to  her  enemies.  The  pestilen- 
tial pervasiveness  of  her  intrigues,  her  alliance 
with  the  elemental  earth-forces  that  would 
drag  man  back  to  his  primordial  pit — by  these 


118  WOODROW   WILSON 

is  she  infecting  the  conscience  and  well-nigh 
destroying  the  moral  reason  of  mankind.  We 
face  the  possible  and  appalling  prospect  of  a 
world  with  a  Germanized  mind  and  morality. 
And  to  the  monstrously  renascent  black  magic 
of  Germany's  unyielding  past,  to  her  staged 
and  histrionic  national  whines,  are  not  only 
eminent  litterateurs  and  revolutionists  surren- 
dering, but  also  empowered  politicians  and 
statesmen.  Whence  a  peace  more  predacious 
than  war,  and  pregnant  with  ages  of  iron  dark- 
ness, now  Cometh  apace  upon  the  peoples.  It 
is  as  if  the  mind  of  the  race  were  seized  by  the 
torpor  of  some  returning  prehistoric  night. 
Wotan  and  Thor,  and  the  earth's  primeval 
creatures,  confederate  and  modernized  in  the 
German  national  soul,  are  in  the  way  of  estab- 
lishing a  dominion  of  death  over  a  world  that 
has  lost  the  sense  of  moral  reality. 


VII 

SAY  not  that  I  speak  against  peace. 
There  need  be  no  debate  with  me  about 
that.  A  condition  of  universal  peace  is  my 
supreme  desire;  for  incalculable  are  the  reach 
and  the  rapidity  of  the  progress  which  man- 
kind might  thereby  make.  But  you  cannot 
build  the  House  of  Peace  upon  the  sands  of 
evasion  and  cowardice.  You  cannot  procure 
an  enduring  and  honorable  international  amity 
apart  from  the  causes  and  consequences  of  the 
conflict  in  which  Europe  is  now  engaged.  The 
whole  spiritual  question  of  the  present  war 
must  be  faced  and  settled  before  there  can  be  a 
peace  that  will  be  other  than  a  tragic  fraud,  and 
the  breeding  bosom  of  vaster  catastrophes  to 
come.  You  cannot  put  into  the  same  moral 
category  the  desire  for  dominion  which  inspired 
the  German  initiative  and  the  self -existence  for 

119 


120  WOODROW   WILSON 

which  France  and  Belgium  and  Servia  are 
fighting.  You  cannot  unify  the  autocratic 
principle  which  is  basic  in  the  Central  Empires 
with  the  democratic  principle  which  is  the  mov- 
ing force  of  French  and  English  political 
evolution.  You  cannot,  for  the  sake  of  short- 
ening the  war,  wipe  the  horrors  of  Belgium 
from  the  German  slate ;  nor  the  destruction  of 
Servia;  nor  the  Armenian  massacres  and  the 
submarine  assassinations.  A  peace  bought 
with  a  price  so  vile  would  announce  nothing 
less  than  the  moral  suicide  of  the  nations. 
The  mere  proposal  for  such  a  peace,  based  as 
it  is  upon  abysmal  lies  and  the  world's  dis- 
honor, is  a  sign  of  the  intellectual  insincerity, 
the  spiritual  shabbiness,  of  the  generation  that 
is  now  so  violently  passing  away. 

Besides^  such  a  peace  would  be,  in  every  es- 
sential effect,  an  overwhelming  victory  for 
Germany.  Make  no  mistake  about  the  fact 
that,  as  the  European  situation  now  stands, 
Germany  has  won  the  war;  and  the  peace  that 
the    pacifists    propose,    apparently   granting 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  121 

victory  to  neither  side,  would  leave  her  in  pos- 
session of  territories  and  spoils  unequaled,  in 
some  respects,  by  the  greatest  of  ancient  em- 
pires, Germany  has  achieved  an  extraordi- 
nary triumph  that  she  herself  probably  did  not 
anticipate  at  the  beginning  of  the  war:  sjie  has 
conquered  her  own  allies,  and  is  practically  in 
possession  of  their  lands.  The  Austrian  and 
Turkish  Empires,  as  well  as  Bulgaria,  are  sub- 
stantially annexed  to  Germany,  to  say  nothing 
of  Roumania,  Servia  and  Montenegro,  A 
compact  and  continuous  German  Empire 
stretches  from  Antwerp  and  Hamburg  to  Bag- 
dad, Not  even  Rome  had  an  empire  so  con- 
crete and  well-rounded,  so  potential  with 
world-dominion.  With  Germany's  unexam- 
pled material  and  technical  efficiency,  with  the 
Pan-German  religion  as  the  soul  of  this  ef- 
ficiency, the  Kaiser's  Empire  constitutes  the 
very  heart  of  both  Europe  and  Asia,  and,  if 
perpetuated,  will  in  a  very  few  years  have  both 
continents  completely  under  control.  Ger- 
many can  well  afford  a  great  display  of  gen- 


122  WOODROW  WILSON 

erous  renunciation.  She  can  evacuate  Bel- 
gium, return  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France  and 
give  the  Trentino  and  Gorizia  to  Italy,  and 
still  have  made  the  greatest  conquest  that  has 
been  made  since  Rome's  greatest  days.  The 
program  of  the  pacifists  and  the  financiers,  if 
it  be  adopted,  according  so  marvellously  as  it 
does  with  Germany's  designs,  will  be  the  great- 
est historic  imposture  that  has  been  perpe- 
trated since  Constantine  blazoned  the  name  of 
Christ  upon  his  polluted  and  polluting  ban- 
ners. It  is  a  peace  that  leaves  the  apparently 
non-victorious  German  as  the  shrewdest  and 
completest  conqueror  of  recorded  history. 


VIII 

THUS  if  we  would  save  the  soul  of  the 
world  from  its  dreadest  danger,  from  per- 
haps its  saddest  delay,  there  must  be  no  com- 
promise with  the  German,  no  halting  by  the 
way  nor  turning  back  in  the  purpose  of  the 
Allies.  We  must  not  forbear  to  cry  that 
peace  with  an  undefeated  and  unrepentant 
Germany  is  black  with  the  world's  disgrace; 
that  it  is  a  peace  pregnant  with  the  doom  of 
freedom's  faith.  No  matter  upon  whose  lips 
it  comes,  nor  what  immediate  nobility  of  pur- 
pose inspires  it,  it  is  a  peace  whose  propelling 
power  is  of  Prussian  generation.  It  can  have 
no  place  in  the  councils  of  justice,  no  reception 
on  the  part  of  the  compassion  that  is  prophetic 
and  comprehensive.  The  nations  cannot  sit 
together  at  a  table  of  peace  on  any  such  terms, 
for  it  would  indeed  be  no  table  of  peace ;  rather 

123 


124  WOODROW   WILSON 

would  it  be  the  table  of  a  convenant  by  which 
humanity  would  turn  traitor  to  itself.  There 
can  be  no  treaty  of  peace — unless  indeed  hu- 
manity thus  betray  itself — short  of  the  com- 
plete destruction  of  that  Prussian  mihtarism 
which,  for  now  these  many  years,  has  blocked 
all  the  wheels  of  the  progress  that  makes  for 
democracy  and  fraternity  among  the  nations. 
Nor  is  that  enough.  The  Allies  must  have 
the  spiritual  strength  to  say  that  they  intend 
to  destroy — not  the  German  people — but  the 
Prussian  state  and  system.  There  can  be  no 
true  civil  order,  no  sane  progress,  no  faithful  in- 
ternational comity  or  community,  until  Prussia 
is  dismembered  and  rendered  impotent.  As 
the  Romans  of  old  resolved,  for  material  and 
Roman  reasons,  that  Carthage  must  be  de- 
stroyed, so  must  England  and  Italy  and 
France  resolve,  for  reasons  of  humanity  and 
the  soul,  and  in  order  that  a  decent  and  fra- 
ternal civilization  may  come  into  being,  that 
the  Prussian  Kingdom  shall  come  to  an  end, 
and  no  more  lay  its  malific  influence  upon  the 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  125 

family  of  nations.  And  if  the  Allies  of  West- 
ern Europe  have  not  faith  to  affirm  this;  if 
they  have  not  the  courage  to  persist  until  this 
he  accomplished;  if  they  do  not  prefer  even  a 
noble  national  eoctinction  to  any  peace  short  of 
this,  then  they  themselves  are  recreant  to  the 
pitiful  divine  judgment  now  relentlessly  en- 
wrapping them,  consuming  the  old  and  di- 
vided world  and  making  way  for  a  world  that 
shall  he  united  and  new. 


IX 

THE  soul  of  the  world  is  sick  of  war — ^this 
I  know — sick  of  the  encirchng  and  in- 
creasing slaughter,  seemingly  so  ineffectual  of 
decision  or  finahty.  Our  present  thoughts 
are  all  upon  its  early  end — upon  when,  rather 
than  what,  the  peace  shall  be.  We  have 
neither  time  nor  patience,  it  seems,  for  the 
search  for  principles,  for  vision  or  prophecy 
or  profound  comprehension.  We  want  im- 
mediate ways  and  means;  we  ask  for  speedy 
and  facile  formulge,  for  instant  and  practical 
solutions,  no  matter  how  transient  they  are, 
no  matter  how  shallow  or  sordid. 

But  we  shall  not  get  the  things  we  want :  we 
shall  have  to  want  and  to  welcome  things  im- 
measurably better.  We  cannot  make  peace 
because  we  are  tired.  We  cannot  build  a 
wiser  world-order  on  the  basis  of  disgust  and 

126 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  127 

weariness  with  the  irrational  and  deathful  dis- 
order that  now  is.  We  have  come  upon  a  time 
when  perhaps  the  world  may  perish,  and  the 
story  of  man  prove  a  cosmic  fiasco,  if  we  do  not 
achieve  some  collective  decision  regarding  our 
life's  common  course  and  meaning.  It  is  to 
just  such  decision  this  incredible  war  is  driving 
us.  It  is  summoning  us  to  a  veritable  seat  of 
judgment;  and  there  the  appealing  past  fore- 
gathers, and  the  insurgent  and  overflowing  fu- 
ture, and  the  interpenetrative  spheres — ^be- 
likely  more  aware  than  we  of  the  hour. 


NOR  Cometh  peace  nearer — it  is  rather  re- 
tarded— by  the  mere  proclamation  of 
the  pacifist  ideal,  no  matter  how  lofty  it  be. 
For  an  ideal  must  not  only  transcend  existing 
reality;  it  must  go  down  underneath  the  con- 
ditions it  would  change,  becoming  their  new 
substructure.  It  must  embrace  and  account 
for  the  whole,  nor  evade  a  single  hard  ques- 
tion, a  single  ugly  fact.  It  must,  if  it  stands 
any  righteous  chance  of  realization,  throw  the 
entire  problem  with  which  it  is  concerned  into 
solution. 

Your  ideal  may  reach  as  high  as  it  places, 
but  it  must  be  rooted  deep  and  firm  in  the 
blood  and  the  dust  of  the  human  struggle. 
Your  prophet  may  peer  as  far  into  the  himian 
future  as  he  can,  but  his  hands  must  grasp  the 
present — ^yea,  and  the  past  also:  for  the  past, 

128 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  129 

too,  is  changed  whenever  we  change  the  pres- 
ent, the  things  that  were  as  well  as  the  things 
that  are  being  appointed  anew  by  each  regen- 
erative process. 

The  pacifist  fails — he  fails  morally  and  intel- 
lectually— because  of  his  dissociation  with  real- 
ity. He  has  let  himself  be  seduced  by  an  ideal 
that  stands  essentially  unrelated  to  the  terrible 
and  transmutative  facts  of  the  hour.  The 
fault  is  not  in  his  ideal,  but  in  its  detachment 
from  both  the  desires  and  the  deeds  that  divide 
into  contending  groups  the  nations  to  whom  it 
is  addressed. 

The  peace  for  which  pacifists  now  clamor 
uprears  itself  on  a  basis  of  ignorance  and  in- 
justice. By  their  studied  determination  to 
consider  not  the  causes  of  the  war,  by  their  re- 
fusal to  face  the  methods  by  which  the  war  has 
been  carried  on  by  the  Central  Powers,  the  most 
of  the  programs  for  peace  destroy  their  own 
validity. 

Besides,  peace  is  not  abstinence  from  war,  is 
not  mere  non-resistance  of  evil ;  and  with  the  in- 


130  WOODROW   WILSON 

fantile  fancy  that  it  is,  and  with  all  pacifist  im- 
moralities as  well,  let  us  at  once  and  forever 
have  done.  If  we  would  have  peace  we  must 
earn  it,  we  must  win  it ;  nor  else  than  by  battle 
may  peace  be  ours.  The  peace  that  is  living, 
the  peace  that  is  upbuilding,  is  the  achievement 
of  spiritual  valor,  of  embattled  love,  and  waits 
at  the  heart  of  life's  conquered  elements. 


XI 

TV  TOT  flesh  and  blood  only  now  contend;  our 
-*-  ^  real  weapons  are  other  than  those  of  mor- 
tal fashioning;  nor  is  it  merely  a  war  between 
nations  that  engages  us.  It  is  a  war  fought 
with  weapons  of  the  spirit ;  it  is  a  war  between 
principles  rather  than  nations — between  the  so- 
cial principle  proclaimed  at  Jerusalem,  two 
thousand  years  gone,  and  the  doctrine  of  power 
announced  and  exercised  by  Germany.  Shall 
it  be  the  religion  of  democracy — which,  if  it  be 
real,  is  none  other  than  the  acceptance  and 
practice  of  the  Christ?  Or  shall  it  be  the  re- 
ligion of  Germanism — ^the  modernization  and 
enthronement  of  Wotan  and  Thor?  The  issue 
of  the  war  will  be  the  world's  answer. 

Be  it  early  or  late,  we  shall  give  due  divine 
account  of  ourselves,  I  am  sure.  Through 
these  mazes  of  murder  and  madness,  humanity 
will  yet  make  its  way.     Deeply  and  vastly, 

131 


132  WOODROW   WILSON 

more  consciously  and  conclusively  than  before, 
more  thoughtfully  and  threateningly,  are  the 
forces  of  freedom  astir.  They  will  be  up  and 
afoot  ere  long;  and  they  will  be  winged  and 
wise  and  unhalting  too,  brooking  nor  let  nor 
hindrance  from  rulers,  from  bankers,  from  par- 
liaments. And  these  forces  of  freedom's  re- 
nascent faith,  fleet  and  effectual,  will  not  only 
turn  back  the  Germanism  which  is  their  pres- 
ent great  enemy :  they  will  then  destroy,  utterly 
and  forever,  that  materialist  faith  which  so 
long  has  been  the  seducer  and  false  builder  of 
civilization,  and  which  has  furnished  the  Ger- 
man Empire  its  reason  for  being. 


V 
PRO-AMERICA 

First  published  in  La  Semaine  Litteraire^  Geneva,  May 

$,  1917,  upon  the  occasion  of  President  Wilson  s 

address  in  declaration  of  war,  April  2, 


PRO-AMERICA 


IT  is  a  curious  but  divine  irony  that  most  of 
the  great  pacifists  of  history — ^the  men  who 
loathed  war  and  sought  to  end  it — have  been 
placed  in  positions  that  morally  compelled  them 
to  fight.  They  have  had  to  enter  the  wars  of 
their  times  in  order  to  consecrate  and  conclude 
them,  making  them  the  violent  openers  of  free- 
dom's doors,  the  procurers  of  a  closer  approach 
to  mutualized  man  and  his  wedded  world. 
Such  is  the  destiny  decreed  to  the  last  and 
the  greatest  of  political  pacifists — President 
Woodrow  Wilson. 

And  by  his  action,  a  new  kind  of  war  has 
appeared  in  the  world — a  war  for  which  there 
is  no  adequate  antecedent.  We  should  have 
to  go  back  to  the  Crusades  for  even  a  partial 

135 


136  WOODROW   WILSON 

analogy.  Although  the  campaigns  of  the 
Crusaders  finally  degenerated  into  expeditions 
for  feudal  plunder  and  dominion,  at  their  in- 
ception they  were  inspired,  just  as  America  is 
now  inspired,  by  a  lofty  and  extra-national  mo- 
tive. Yet  even  so,  their  attention  was  fixed 
upon  the  past  rather  than  the  future:  they 
naively  thought  the  Christian  religion  was  to 
be  saved  by  the  recovery  of  its  local  birth- 
places. But  the  war  which  America  is  about 
to  wage  will  have  the  future  and  not  the  past  in 
view;  and  it  will  be  universal  in  its  scope  and 
motivity. 

America  is  but  incidentally  at  war  with  Ger- 
many. It  is  upon  a  new  and  vaster  Crusade, 
rather  than  against  Germany,  that  President 
Wilson  is  leading  his  people.  "The  world 
must  be  safe  for  democracy,"  he  declares. 
"The  menace  to  peace  and  freedom  lies  in  the 
existence  of  autocratic  governments  backed 
by  organized  force  which  is  controlled  wholly 
by  their  will  and  not  by  the  will  of  their  peo- 
ple"; and  "a  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  1ST 

never  be  maintained  except  by  the  partnership 
of  democratic  nations." 

Thus  America  will  be  fighting  for  a  free  and 
federate  world.  The  inspiration  of  her  armies 
and  efforts  will  be  the  release  of  the  nations, 
once  and  forever,  from  the  autocratic  princi- 
ple, from  ruling-class  institutions,  from  every 
feudal  form  and  remnant.  Her  aim  will  be  to 
set  the  invocations  and  opportunities  of  free- 
dom before  them — to  compel  and  rejoice  them 
with  a  human  prospect  that  is  wholly  demo- 
cratic and  mutualistic.  It  is  for  this  that  Pres- 
ident Wilson  has  labored  so  patiently,  so  pru- 
dently, so  prophetically,  and  amidst  such  en- 
thralling difficulties  and  pervading  complex- 
ities. 

Not  yet  may  we  appreciate  the  marvel  of  his 
achievement :  we  are  too  near  the  culmination, 
too  eager  to  reap  its  first  results.  But  ere  long 
we  shall  perceive  that  there  is  not  in  all  his- 
tory a  case  of  a  nation  being  so  adroitly  and 
sublimely  led  out  of  one  state  of  mind  into  an- 
other, and  led  with  such  psychological  percep- 


138  WOODROW   WILSON 

tion  and  mastery.  If  the  nation,  like  the  in- 
dividual, has  a  subconscious  mind,  apparently 
it  was  this  man  alone  who  entered  into  it,  so 
far  as  America  is  concerned — nor  entered  only, 
but  brought  its  deep-hid  desires  to  the  thresh- 
old of  practical  politics,  and  translated  them 
into  conscious  democratic  purpose. 

In  order  to  measure  the  magnitude  of  this 
conversion,  we  must  remember  that  the  great 
Middle  West  of  America  seemed  so  per- 
manently pro-German,  a  few  months  ago,  that 
the  German  government  counted  upon  Amer- 
ica as  an  eventual  ally.  Many  influences  were 
working  to  this  end.  The  first  was  the  Ger- 
man-American Alliance,  which  had  its  baptism 
and  initiation  at  the  hands  of  the  Kaiser's 
brother,  Prince  Henry,  who  went  to  America 
for  this  purpose  fifteen  years  ago.  He  was  re- 
ceived with  a  popular  enthusiasm  so  inordinate 
that  it  became  repulsive  to  self-respecting  men 
and  women.  He  was  feasted  and  honored  by 
President  Roosevelt,  who  was  then  at  the 
height  of  his  prestige  and  power.     The  result 


AND   THE   WORLDS   PEACE  139 

was  an  immense  popularization  of  eveiything 
German  in  America,  and  all  things  English 
were  discredited. 

Then  there  were  large  academic  influences 
at  work  for  Germany's  dominance  in  science 
and  scholarship;  for  the  university  culture  in 
America  was  essentially  German  in  its  tend- 
encies and  sympathies.  This  has  been  well 
stated  by  the  editor  of  a  great  national  journal. 
Collier's  Weekly,  ^'Before  the  war,"  he  said, 
"there  was  excessive  admiration  for  the  intel- 
lectual vigor  and  orderliness  of  the  German 
search  for  the  kind  of  knowledge  that  some 
day  may  civilize  the  world.  Germany  was  the 
great  post-graduate  schoolhouse  for  America. 
Every  young  man  who  wanted  a  precise  under- 
standing of  his  profession,  or  wanted  to  pre- 
tend to  have  it,  went  to  Germany  if  he  could 
afford  to.  The  fact  that  he  had  attended  lec- 
tures over  there  was  a  better  recommendation 
for  him  than  a  diploma  from  an  American 
technical  school.  In  former  years  the  ambi- 
tious American  student  traveled  to  London  or 


140  WOODROW   WILSON 

Edinburgh  to  round  out  the  semblance  of  an 
education.  In  recent  years  it  seemed  neces- 
sary for  him  to  go  to  Berlin  or  Vienna.  It 
was  so  in  almost  every  branch  of  scientific 
training.  Germans  were,  for  Americans,  the 
authority  on  everything  from  measles  to  Chi- 
nese pottery." 

There  was  also  a  chain  of  powerful  news- 
papers, owned  by  William  Randolph  Hearst, 
and  reaching  twenty  million  daily  readers. 
For  years,  his  numerous  journals  have  advo- 
cated an  alliance  between  the  United  States 
and  Germany  against  England  and  Japan. 
The  same  idea  has  dominated  influential  poli- 
ticians— dominates  them  even  now.  Many 
congressmen  are  still  as  pro-German  as  ever. 
They  have  merely  submitted  to  an  aroused  and 
ennobled  people,  persuaded  to  their  present 
high  plane  of  action  by  the  superb  moral  per- 
sistence of  their  President. 

Nor  is  the  world  even  now  aware  of  the  ex- 
traordinary duel  that  has  gone  on,  for  nearly 
three  years,  between  the  intrigues  of  the  Ger- 


AND  THE   WORLD^S   PEACE  141 

man  government  and  the  wit  and  wisdom  of 
Mr.  Wilson,  standing  resolute  and  solitary 
amidst  issues  and  conspiracies  of  which  he  only 
knew.  And  although  Germany  has  lost  and 
humanity  has  won,  it  is  through  the  miraculous 
tact,  the  international  statesmanship,  that  held 
sway  over  this  one  man's  onward  and  unchang- 
ing purpose.  There  is  a  passage  in  Plato's 
''Republic"  which  well  applies  to  Mr.  Wilson's 
patience  during  this  momentous  struggle. 
"The  peevish  temper,"  says  Plato,  "furnishes 
an  infinite  variety  of  materials  for  imitation; 
whereas  the  temper  which  is  wise  and  calm  is 
so  constantly  uniform  and  unchanging  that  it 
is  not  easily  imitated:  and  when  imitated  it  is 
not  easily  understood,  especially  by  a  general 
gathering  of  all  sorts  of  persons."  To  "the 
peevish  temper"  of  many  of  his  countrymen, 
and  especially  to  the  attacks  of  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
Mr.  Wilson  gave  neither  heed  nor  answer. 
He  kept  on  his  way  until  his  hour  had  come: 
he  could  not  have  acted  an  hour  sooner  than 
he  did.     And  now  his  patience  has  been  re- 


142  WOODROW   WILSON 

warded,  his  purpose  fulfilled,  in  the  war  which 
America  will  wage  for  a  free  and  mutual- 
membered  family  of  nations. 

We  may  now  rest  assured  that  no  peace  will 
be  made  with  the  Hapsburgs  or  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns.  America  will  not  sheathe  her  sword  so 
long  as  a  Kaiser  sits  upon  a  throne.  She 
recognizes  in  England  and  Italy  fellow-repub- 
lics even  more  democratic  in  many  respects 
than  herself,  and  whose  kings  are  merely  sym- 
bols of  a  national  unitj: ;  but  over  the  Central 
Empires  she  sees  the  rule  of  that  Oriental  and 
anachronistic  absolutism  which  has  so  long  per- 
verted mankind — so  long  prevented  the  true 
progress  and  self-expression  of  the  people. 

But  this  purging  of  the  world  of  its  feudal 
and  autocratic  past,  of  its  governing  classes,  is 
only  the  beginning.  From  now  on,  the  war 
will  take  on  new  and  wide  spiritual  aspects — 
will  become  more  and  more  religious,  more  and 
more  apocalyptic.  To  the  American  mind 
and  motive,  it  will  become  a  crusade  for  a 
democracy  whose  application  shall  at  last  com- 


AND   THE   WORLD  S    PEACE  143 

prehend  all  the  facts  and  forces  of  life — all 
moral  and  social  and  economic  relations;  a 
democracy,  in  fine,  which  shall  be  an  approach 
to  the  early  Christian  idea  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

It  is  precisely  this  idea  which  President  Wil- 
son has  brought  into  the  sphere  of  practical 
politics.  He  has  based  the  rights  and  rela- 
tions of  nations  upon  it,  and  the  permanent 
peace  of  the  world,  as  well  as  the  freedom  and 
fulfillment  of  individuality.  It  is  the  end  to- 
ward which  he  means  to  shape  the  war,  and 
which  he  means  to  make  the  motive  and  the 
goal  of  American  participation  in  it.  There 
are  few  that  yet  realize  the  significance  of  what 
he  has  done,  and  of  what  America  will  yet  do ; 
but  the  divine  appointment  of  this  participa- 
tion will  become  manifest  in  a  series  of  world- 
changes,  in  a  world-union  and  an  ultimate 
world-happiness,  that  are  quite  beyond  the 
present  understanding  or  belief  of  either  re- 
ligions or  nations. 


II 

To  Americans  such  as  myself — who  have 
been  counted  inconsistent  in  defending 
the  delays  of  the  President  while  pleading  for 
the  cause  of  the  Allies — to  us  the  present  ac- 
tion of  America  brings  a  joy  and  an  exaltation 
which  cannot  well  be  expressed;  for  now  we 
are  delivered  from  what  was  indeed  a  tragic 
dilemma.  From  its  beginnings,  we  have  be- 
lieved the  war  to  be  the  supreme  crisis  of  his- 
tory. We  have  perceived,  or  have  thought  we 
perceived  that  upon  the  war's  results,  upon  the 
general  decision  as  to  its  causes  and  conse- 
quences, would  depend  the  fate  of  mankind 
for  centuries  to  come.  We  have  even  thought 
the  choice  would  be  final,  sealing  once  and  for 
all  the  course  and  the  issue  of  man's  planetary 
career.  And  holding  thus  to  the  apocalyptic 
and  definitive  nature  of  these  days,  conceiv- 

X44 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  145 

ing  the  true  value  of  man's  past  history  and  ex- 
perience to  be  wrapped  up  in  the  victory  of  the 
Allies,  we  have  placed  the  achievement  of  that 
victory  before  all  else  that  concerned  us — be- 
fore native  land,  before  labors  in  which  our 
lives  have  been  spent,  before  friends,  before 
every  personal  plan  or  desire. 

As  ardent  Americans,  we  naturally  wished 
our  nation  to  share  in  the  sacrifice  and  glory  of 
the  defence  of  humanity  against  the  German 
destroyer.  But  we  knew  that  America,  as  a 
whole,  was  either  pro-German  or  pacifist,  and 
that  only  an  intellectual  minority  favored  the 
cause  of  the  Allies.  President  Wilson  knew 
this,  and  Germany  knew,  but  the  Allies  knew  it 
not.  We  foresaw  that  if  the  German  govern- 
ment could  force  America  prematurely  into 
the  war,  the  step  would  be  to  Germany's  ad- 
vantage. She  could  prevent  the  shipment  of 
munitions  and  supplies  to  the  Allies,  and  count 
upon  the  pro-German  sympathy  of  the  popu- 
lation, even  to  the  extent  of  creating  civil  war. 
President  Wilson  was  determined  to  postpone 


146  WOODROW    WILSON 

his  decision  until  the  nation  should  begin  to 
understand  the  German  menace,  and  to  discern 
that  the  Allies  were  the  champions  of  democ- 
racy. Even  three  months  ago,  Germany 
would  have  been  the  gainer  if  America  had 
then  joined  the  Allies.  We  seemed  therefore 
— those  of  us  who  were  Americans  and  under- 
stood the  dangers  of  a  too  early  intervention — 
to  be  guilty  of  advocating  the  cause  of  the  Al- 
lies and  yet  of  desiring  the  non-participation 
of  America  on  their  behalf. 

Nor  did  the  sorrow  and  the  perplexity  of 
our  position  end  there:  we  knew  that  Amer- 
ica was  lost  if  she  did  not  make  war  against  the 
Central  Empires — not  otherwise,  we  have  re- 
peatedly said,  could  she  save  or  create  her  own 
national  soul.  Yet  knowing  even  this,  we  had 
to  protest  against  participation  at  the  time 
Germany  desired  it — the  time  when  she  could 
still  count  upon  not  only  a  measure  of  Amer- 
ican sympathy,  but  upon  the  intervention  of 
American  politicians  on  her  behalf.     We  had 


AND  THE  WORLD^S   PEACE  147 

to  plead  for  confidence  in  the  President's  judg- 
ment, and  to  show  the  danger  besetting  the 
AlHes  through  a  premature  American  action. 


Ill 

BUT  all  that  is  changed,  and  the  whole 
world  is  changed  as  a  consequence.  For 
our  President,  acting  now  with  such  creative 
comprehension,  is  able  so  to  act  because  he 
awaited  the  precise  psychological  moment. 
He  studied  the  dial  of  the  world's  destiny ;  he 
watched  the  hands  on  the  clock  of  God. 
With  a  patience  as  wise  as  it  is  magnanimous, 
with  a  spiritual  shrewdness  that  reveals  his  kin- 
ship with  Moses  and  Cavour  and  Lincoln,  with 
a  prescience  that  appears  nearly  supernatural, 
he  held  broodingly  and  bravely  to  his  appointed 
times.  Amidst  the  murmurs  of  the  unknow- 
ing Allies,  amidst  the  complaining  voices  of 
their  anxious  and  unilluminated  American 
friends,  amidst  the  howls  of  mob-minded  lead- 
ers as  well,  he  let  the  inadequate  occasions  go 
by,  yielding  not  to  their  clamors  or  seductions; 

148 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  149 

for  he  knew  they  were  fraught  with  the  fail- 
ure of  his  final  purpose. 

But  the  stupendous  hour  came  at  last,  and 
the  man  filled  the  measure  of  the  hour;  and 
now  it  is  not  only  America,  but  an  eager  fel- 
lowship of  expectant  nations — of  nations  en- 
visioned and  empowered  with  a  new  and  won- 
drous world-purpose — that  follows  this  first  of 
world-statesmen  into  who  knows  what  fields  of 
war  ere  the  days  of  battles  be  done.  For  now 
it  is  indeed  a  war  between  light  and  darkness — 
a  war  between  a  white  and  a  black  governing 
principle,  each  striving  for  possession  of  the 
world. 

Shall  authority  become  the  candid  and 
chosen  servant  of  the  peoples,  based  upon  their 
free  and  federate  will,  proceeding  from  their 
mutual  mind,  their  social  spirit,  their  common 
affection?  Or  shall  authority  be  imposed 
upon  the  peoples  from  without,  proceeding 
from  the  will  of  a  possessing  and  governing 
class,  and  administered  by  the  sheer  might  of 
a  state  that  is  an  end  in  itself?     It  is  to  decide 


150  WOODROW   WILSON 

as  to  which  of  these  two  principles  shall  prevail 
— as  to  which  shall  possess  and  shape  the  world 
— that  the  war  from  now  on  will  be  waged. 

I  know  that,  as  against  the  interpretation  I 
have  presented,  the  pacifist  critics  proclaim  the 
action  of  America  to  be  the  triumph  of  a  schem- 
ing and  monied  militarist  propaganda:  but 
precisely  the  opposite  is  profoundly  the  truth. 
America  has  become  practically  and  exultantly 
anti-militarist.  She  has  mobilized  her  will  and 
her  faith,  her  sons  and  her  cities  and  her  prai- 
ries, her  natural  and  industrial  and  inventive 
resources,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  militar- 
ism to  its  full  and  final  end.  She  has  taken  up 
arms  in  order  to  destroy  the  need  of  arms. 
She  has  made  herself  the  militant  exponent  of 
the  millennial  peace  of  the  Apocalypse. 

And  there  is  no  contradiction  between 
America's  traditional  opposition  to  militarism 
and  her  radiant  resolution  to  fight.  Her  de- 
termination to  clean  up  the  world,  to  make  it 
the  dwelling-place  of  only  democratic  peoples 
and  societies,  is  the  perfect  sequence  of  her 


AND   THE   WORLD^S   PEACE  151 

historic  hostility  to  standing  armies  and  to  war 
as  a  method  of  progress.  And,  furthermore, 
she  has  probably  though  unconsciously  sounded 
the  doom  of  the  destructive  economic  system, 
the  profiteering  mode  of  production  and  distri- 
bution, upon  which  the  prevalence  of  war  de- 
pends, and  which  depends  upon  war  for  its 
own  perpetuity. 

This  new  faith  of  America,  unforeseen  nor 
fully  furnished  yet,  will  finally  and  fully  pre- 
vail. The  end  is  not  in  doubt — even  though 
the  human  race  wade  through  woes  yet  un- 
known and  immeasurable.  Already,  in  the 
hour  when  America  decided  to  fight  for  the 
freedom  of  humanity  and  the  peace  of  the 
world — in  that  instant,  the  old  heaven  and  the 
old  earth  began  gathering  themselves  together 
for  departure;  and  it  is  beneath  a  new  and 
more  intimate  heaven,  it  is  amidst  the  sudden 
vast  resources  of  a  collective  spiritual  precipi- 
tation, and  into  the  tremendous  morning  of  an 
earth  newly-born  and  transfigured,  that  Wood- 
row  Wilson  leads  now  the  enleagued  and  de- 
termined democratic  peoples. 


APPENDIX 
AN  APOLOGIA 

Published  partly  in  La  Tribune  de  Geneve,  July  l,  1917, 

and  partly  in  a  previous  number  of 

11  Giornale  d' Italia,  Rome, 


AN  APOLOGIA 


FOR  some  months  now,  I  have  been  vari- 
ously criticised,  even  verbally  executed, 
by  the  far  from  peaceful  group  of  pacifists  that 
gathers  about  M.  Romain  Rolland,  and  that, 
with  or  without  his  consent,  enjoys  the  advan- 
tage of  his  pre-eminent  prestige.  And  this  at- 
tack upon  my  written  words  and  their  seeming 
inconsistencies  is  so  extended  as  to  include  the 
whole  American  nation,  and  especially  Presi- 
dent Wilson.  I  naturally  count  myself  miser- 
ably unworthy  of  the  honor  these  critics  thus 
bestow  upon  me;  for  I  am  indeed  one  of  the 
least  representative  of  Americans,  and  our 
great  President  could  scarcely  claim  a  more 
negligible  supporter.  Despite  my  irrelevance, 
however,  I  feel  that  the  critics  have  at  last  laid 

155 


156  WOODROW   WILSON 

upon  me  a  measure  of  defensive  responsi- 
bility. 

Particularly  am  I  called  to  account  for  hav- 
ing supported,  nearly  two  years  ago,  an  Amer- 
ican anti-militarist  propaganda,  while  at  the 
same  time  supporting  the  cause  of  the  Allies: 
the  critics  most  triumphantly  contrast  certain 
words  I  then  wrote  with  words  that  are  more 
recent. 

But  I  have  not  changed  my  mind  about  what 
I  then  said :  I  am  not  less  but  more  anti-mili- 
tarist than  I  was  before  Germany  essentially 
challenged  the  Christ  of  the  Apocalypse,  and 
the  ongoing  issues  of  the  French  Revolution, 
to  a  mortal  and  mayhap  final  combat.  And 
this  nowise  contradicts  my  position  as  a  pro- 
Ally  and  as  profoundly  an  enthusiast  regard- 
ing America's  participation  in  the  war.  I  was 
then  writing  against  a  pernicious  propaganda 
to  make  America  a  military  nation — shaping 
herself  upon  the  European  pattern  instead  of 
creating  for  and  of  herself  a  pattern  wholly 
new.     The  propaganda  had  begun  long  before 


AND   THE   WORLD^S   PEACE  157 

the  world-war,  and  had  no  logical  relation 
thereto ;  there  was  then  no  prospect  that  Amer- 
ica would  join  the  Allies  in  the  defence  of  the 
human  against  the  German.  There  was  the 
possibiHty,  however,  of  America's  entrance 
upon  a  career  of  imperialistic  expansion. 
Such  was  the  clamorous  program  of  certain 
politicians,  supported  by  powerful  capitalist 
over-lords,  seeking  an  ultimate  subjection  of 
the  world's  markets  to  their  international 
banks.  Mexico  and  China  were  the  first  ob- 
jectives of  this  program,  carrying  with  it,  also, 
the  early  domination  of  North  and  South 
America.  It  was  to  this  I  was  opposed :  I  did 
not  wish  to  see  our  country  become  a  second 
Rome,  according  to  the  prophecy  of  Guglielmo 
Ferrero  and  the  much  earlier  De  Tocqueville. 

Nor  was  it  my  humble  opposition  which  was 
to  be  reckoned  with;  that  would  have  been  a 
small  and  futile  matter.  President  Wilson — 
who  is  today  the  world's  greatest  pacifist — was 
steadfastly  opposed  to  this  militarist  program 
from  the  first,  as  he  is  steadfastly  opposed  to  it 


158  WOODROW   WILSON 

now.  Eminent  educators  of  America  were 
and  still  are  opposed  to  it — even  while  fer- 
vently supporting  the  participation  of  Amer- 
ica in  the  war  between  Germanism  and  the 
spiritual  being  of  humanity. 


II 

NOR  has  there  been  any  conversion  in  my 
position  as  regards  the  particular  war  in 
which  the  world  is  now  engaged.  From  its  be- 
ginning till  now,  I  have  been  both  pro- Ally 
and  pacifist.  It  is  precisely  because  1  am  a 
pacifist  that  I  am  profoundly  pro- Ally.  He  is 
the  true  pacifist,  I  believe,  who  now  identifies 
himself  with  the  men  and  the  nations  that  lay 
the  axe  at  the  Prussian  root  of  the  world's  pres- 
ent overwhelming  military  evil.  And  this  I 
have  believed  and  avowed  from  the  first — from 
this  position  I  have  never  deviated.  I  did 
not  become  pro-Ally  on  coming  to  French 
Switzerland,  as  the  critics  declare. 

Eight  years  ago,  I  wrote  a  long  paper,  pub- 
lished in  England  and  America,  and  after- 
ward translated  into  French  and  German, 
urging  the  German  peril  upon  the  attention  of 

159 


160  WOODROW   WILSON 

international  socialists.  I  declared,  then,  that 
Prussian  Germany  did  not  belong  to  the  cate- 
gory of  civilized  nations,  but  stood  for  a  mili- 
tarist and  military  barbarism  which  would  over- 
whelm Europe,  and  afterwards  America,  if  the 
nations  did  not  unite  to  compel  Germany's  dis- 
armament. Surely, — and  alas! — has  Ger- 
many fulfilled  my  prophecy. 

And  but  fourteen  months  before  the  war, 
I  again  wrote  at  length  and  vehemently  upon 
the  subject,  pointing  out  the  catastrophe  that 
was  near  unless  a  prepared  civilization  should 
prevent  German  action.  I  outlined  the  Ber- 
lin-to-Bagdad  program  as  the  pivot  of  the  war 
I  saw  surely  approaching.  This  appeal  was 
widely  published  in  England  and  America, 
read  by  many  thousands  of  people,  and  dis- 
missed as  fantastic.  In  fourteen  months,  and 
almost  according  to  my  presumptuous  sched- 
ule, the  catastrophe  came. 

Then  immediately,  and  variously  and  at 
length,  I  wrote  in  condemnation  of  the  action 
of   German   Social-Democrats;   at  the   same 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  161 

time,  I  called  upon  all  other  Socialists  to  rally 
to  the  support  of  the  Allies,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  fighting,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, for  that  world- democracy  which  af- 
fords the  only  sphere  wherein  social  recon- 
struction can  take  place. 

I  am  on  record,  messieurs  les  pacifists,  for 
the  past  ten  years,  in  my  opposition  to  Ger- 
manism— to  Germanism  as  a  world-politic,  to 
Germanism  as  a  religion.  I  have  spoken  and 
written  so  much  upon  the  issue  between  Ger- 
manism and  humanity, — between  Germanism 
and  democracy, — between  Germanism  and 
essential  socialism, — between  Germanism  and 
the  real  religion  of  Christ, — that  I  have  thereby 
become,  so  far  as  I  am  read  at  all,  a  nuisance 
among  the  nations. 


Ill 

As  to  my  country,  there  is  no  contradiction 
or  inconsistency  in  the.present  American 
procedure;  rather  is  our  national  action 
threaded  with  the  highest  consistency  and 
unity. 

It  is  true,  as  the  Sociahst  pacifists  contend, 
and  as  I  have  just  now  admitted,  that  power- 
ful capitalists  did  plan,  in  the  past,  the  con- 
version of  America  into  a  military  nation;  but 
the  capitalists  have  not  accomplished  their 
purpose  by  the  present  action  of  America. 
On  the  contrary,  America  has  taken  the  course 
that  involves — doubt  it  not — the  ultimate 
doom  of  the  system  by  which  the  capitalist  be- 
comes. It  is  for  this  reason  some  of  the  most 
powerful  financiers  did  their  utmost  to  bring 
about  a  premature  peace,  and  to  prevent 
American  co-operation  with  the  Allies.     For 

162 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  163 

this  reason,  also,  some  of  them  even  now 
secretly  support  the  pseudo-pacifism  that  is 
everywhere  working  for  Germany — working  to 
compose  a  peace  that  shall  leave  her  relatively 
as  powerful  as  she  was  before  the  war. 


IV 

T3UT  the  chief  point  of  pacifist  criticism  is 
-■--^  the  seeming  change  that  came  over  our 
President.  I  have  abeady  answered  their 
criticism  in  different  journals  and  upon  divers 
occasions.  But,  at  the  cost  of  repetition,  I 
feel  I  must  explain  the  American  situation 
more  fully — or  rather  enlarge  upon  the  ex- 
planation I  have  already  given. 

The  change  has  not  been  in  Mr.  Wilson,  but 
in  the  nation  of  which  he  is  the  chief  servant. 
If  American  feeling,  up  till  the  beginning  of 
the  present  year,  had  been  weighed  or  meas- 
ured, it  would  have  been  found  to  bulk  largely 
on  the  side  of  Germany.  It  is  true  that  there 
is  an  intellectual  minority,  chiefly  along  the 
Atlantic  fringe,  which,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  has  both  intelligently  and  ardently 
supported  the  cause  of  the  Alhes,  and  from 

164 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  165 

which  some  of  the  best  expositions  of  the  issue 
between  Germany  and  civihzation  have  come. 
But  this  New  York  and  New  England  mi- 
nority neither  represents  nor  knows  actual 
America:  it  has  always  been  ignorant  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole,  influencing  the  national 
mind  but  little  at  any  time,  and  now  scarcely 
at  all.  The  real  America  is  embodied,  both 
geographically  and  temperamentally,  by  those 
states  which  lie  between  the  Alleghany  and  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  which  we  loosely  call 
the  Middle  West.  And  this  great  Middle 
West,  increasingly  unmindful  or  disdainful  of 
the  Atlantic  fringe,  was  not  deeply  concerned 
with  the  embattled  hopes  and  despau's  of  Eu- 
rope. So  far  as  it  had  sympathies,  they  were 
largely  pro-German — although,  as  I  have  said, 
the  Middle  West  American  had  little  or  no 
knowledge  of  what  the  war  was  about,  nor  did 
he  trouble  himself  to  learn.  In  so  far  as  he 
gave  it  his  attention,  the  war  seemed  to  him 
without  sense  or  meaning,  and  none  of  his  af- 
fair.    He  regarded  it  as  an  Old  World  de- 


166  WOODROW   WILSON 

lirium,  a  needless  universal  annoyance,  inter- 
fering with  earth's  comfortable  ongoing.  No 
less,  his  pro- German  sympathies  were  there, 
even  though  of  an  origin  that  was  either  cal- 
culative  or  careless. 

The  former  pro-Germanism  of  the  Middle 
West  American  is  easy  to  understand.  He 
has  had  Germany  for  a  neighbor  all  his  life. 
The  adjoining  village  door-yard,  or  the  next 
farmyard,  enclose  the  home  of  a  German- 
American.  Or  he  may  have  been  born  in 
Germany  himself;  or  if  not  himself,  his  par- 
ents are  German-born.  If  he  is  of  substance 
and  ambition  sufficient  to  send  his  sons  and 
daughters  to  college,  they  pass  under  the 
teaching  of  professors  the  most  of  whom  have 
studied  in  German  universities ;  for  a  German 
diploma  has  been  practically  the  pre-requisite 
of  a  professorship  in  an  American  college  or 
unversity. 

There  are  indeed  large  sections  of  the  Mid- 
dle West,  large  towns  and  agricultural  com- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  167 

munities,  in  which  German  is  the  prevailing 
language,  and  where  little  or  no  English  is 
heard;  and  also  where,  as  a  consequence,  the 
German  mentality  has  been  subtly  displacing 
the  mentality  of  the  early  Anglo-Saxon  and 
still  earlier  French  settlers.  And  aside  from 
ancestry  and  language,  there  is  the  economic 
condition  and  social  influence  of  the  average 
German-American.  He  is  usually  frugal, 
substantial,  often  jovial,  sometimes  religious. 
He  has  the  habits  of  what  we  are  fondly  and 
fatuously  accustomed  to  regard  as  "a  good 
citizen."  It  is  true,  if  the  original  American 
had  been  discerning,  he  would  have  noted  that 
his  German-American  neighbor  tacitly  as- 
sumed some  sort  of  superiority,  and  that  he  re- 
mained a  member  of  some  German  tribe.  A 
closer  analysis  would  have  revealed,  too,  that 
America  was  not  assimilating  the  German 
citizenry  so  much  as  the  German  citizenry  was 
assimilating  America.  But  the  average  Ameri- 
can is  not  discerning,  and  is  only  annoyed 


168  WOODROW   WILSON 

when  he  is  asked  to  make  intellectual  discrimi- 
nations; and  in  this  he  does  not  differ  from 
the  average  citizen  of  another  country. 

With  England  and  France,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Middle  West  American  has  not  been  inti- 
mate. He  does  not  know  that  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, — that  the  pro- 
tection of  his  country's  political  interests  in 
South  America, — has  depended  chiefly  upon 
the  British  navy  and  the  somewhat  generous 
consent  of  the  British  government.  He  does 
not  much  remember  Lafayette — it  is  the  At- 
lantic fringe  which  does  that.  His  knowledge 
of  English  history,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  Amer- 
ica, is  confined  to  the  highly-colored  tyranny, 
exercised  by  Lord  North  and  George  IV, 
which  hampered  the  West  India  trade  of  the 
Puritan  merchants  and  brought  on  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution.  And  all  his  conceptions  of 
France  are  derived  from  school-book  or  Sun- 
day School  tales  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and 
from  the  usual  traditions  of  French  frivolity 
and    atheism — tales    that    have    been    accen- 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  169 

tuated,  these  recent  years,  by  the  growth  of  the 
poHtical  power  of  the  CathoHc  Church  along- 
side that  of  the  German  citizenry.  He  has 
heard  of  France  and  England  from  afar,  and 
with  poisoned  or  provincial  ears,  while  he  has 
had  the  industrious  and  assertive  Germany  in 
his  daily  midst. 

It  is  only  when  we  keep  this  whole  Ameri- 
can situation  in  mind,  and  remember  that  prob- 
ably President  Wilson  knew  it  as  no  other  man 
knew  it,  that  we  can  understand  the  difficulties 
with  which  he  has  had  to  deal,  and  the  adroit 
and  dramatic  patience  he  has  had  to  exercise. 
Neither  his  verbal  nor  his  factual  movements 
are  academic  or  theoretic,  mysterious  or  in- 
decisive, or  inconsistent  with  one  another  in 
their  progress,  to  one  who  knows  the  mentahty 
of  the  American  people  and  the  perilous  com- 
plexity of  the  American  national  problem. 
On  the  contrary,  the  course  of  our  President 
has  been  one  of  extraordinary  consistency  and 
perception.  It  has  been  with  a  leadership  un- 
equaled  in  history,  with  a  wisdom  and  continu- 


170  WOODROW   WILSON 

ity  that  seem  almost  omniscient,  that  Wood- 
row  Wilson  has  guided  the  nation  into  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  meaning  of  the  war,  and 
into  an  acceptance  of  world-responsibility. 


THUS  America  traveled  the  road  to  Da- 
mascus and  saw  a  great  light.  She  en- 
ters now  upon  the  war  with  a  purpose  and  in 
a  spirit  that  perhaps  never  hitherto  inspired  a 
warring  nation.  To  her  it  is  indeed  a  holy 
war.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  the 
nation  is  possessed  by  the  purpose  to  "make 
the  world  safe  for  democracy" — to  create,  in 
fact,  a  world-state  embracing  all  nations. 

There  is  but  one  thing  that  can  possibly  ren- 
der vain  America's  masterful  and  majestic  con- 
secration— and  that  is,  the  procurement  of  a 
premature  peace  by  the  pacifist  emissaries  of 
Germany.  It  is  these,  as  President  Wilson 
himself  now  perceives,  who  are  America's  and 
democracy's  worst  enemy.  And  it  is  these 
we  must  fight  without  surcease — against  these 
we  must  lift  all  the  weapons  which  freedom's 

171 


172  WOODROW   WILSON 

former  revolutions  have  placed  in  our  hands — 
lest  the  dream  of  the  fraternal  world-state, 
lest  America's  crusade  for  the  fulfillment  of 
that  dream,  die  away  in  treason  and  compro- 
mise, and  thus  the  whole  present  sacrifice  of 
humanity  prove  vain. 

Yet  even  as  I  sound  this  warning,  I  am 
moved  to  say  that  such  futihty  of  faith,  such 
baffling  of  sacrifice,  cannot  be.  For  we  are 
not  alone — we  are  not  alone  in  the  struggle 
and  the  hope  for  which  America  has  drawn  the 
consecrated  sword.  Cooperate  with  us,  un- 
witnessed except  by  the  few  seeing  eyes,  are 
they  who  are  stronger  than  the  schemes  and 
the  swords  that  are  against  us.  Invisibly  but 
appreciably  proceeding  in  our  midst,  white- 
horsed  and  well-weaponed  there,  dead  to 
egoism  from  the  world's  foundation  and  there- 
fore predestined  to  victory,  are  the  hosts  and 
the  Leadership  no  planetary  powers  or  crea- 
tures can  withstand.  They  hold  in  their 
hearts  the  meaning  of  these  days,  and  upon 


AND   THE   world's   PEACE  173 

them  are  the  war's  last  issues,  the  earth's  in- 
eflPable  ends. 

And  because  the  world  is  theirs,  it  is  also 
ours;  hence  our  hearts  need  not  be  troubled, 
neither  need  they  be  afraid.  The  divine  man- 
hood whereof  our  history  has  so  far  been  the 
continual  crucifier, — this  manhood  will  sur- 
vive, will  arise  and  grow  in  stature  and  prevail. 
The  peace  that  proceedeth  from  a  worlded 
good- will,  the  justice  that  inhereth  in  mutual 
love  only,  the  freedom  that  is  naught  other 
than  obedience  to  that  love, — these  are  ap- 
proaching, are  inevitable.  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand. 


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